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Things I Never Thought I'd See

To wit:

- My colleague Mitch Wagner attended the O'Reilly ETech conference. He wrote a nifty blog entry from there about the notion of paying attention. In it, he notes that Linda Stone, one of the speakers at the conference, talked about how most of us aren't really paying full attention to anything, and as a result we go through life in one big blur. It's a notion she calls "continuous partial attention." As a result, Stone says, CEOs are asking people to "disarm"--to drop their PDAs, cell phones, and pretty much anything that beeps or interrupts--before they enter a meeting space. I had to chuckle at this notion for a couple of reasons. It reminded me of those old Western movies, where gentlemen "checked" their firearms and other weaponry at the doors of certain establishments. And it made me wonder if, in the maturing cycle of this industry, we're finally beginning to go backwards--but in a good way. Just maybe we're starting to see that being present and fully attentive is a good thing. Multitasking to the point of insanity, where nothing gets done well, isn't to anyone's advantage, and we've been pretty much delusional to think that the idea of keeping 47 things going at once is doable in any kind of quality way. Who knows, maybe the next fad will be IT managers telling tech workers to go outside and get some fresh air on their lunch breaks? Maybe healthier foods in the machine right next to the Twinkies and Ho-Hos?

- Hearing the words "Microsoft" and "open source" in the same sentence still gives me pause. Yes, I realize there have been bits and pieces that Microsoft has made available as open source over the years, but there's a difference between code that's ultimately meant to benefit Microsoft and code that might do everyone else some good, too. In the first camp are projects like Dynamic Snap code, which helps bind Axapta and CRM applications to Office. Microsoft made that available to get more software developers behind it, a move that will ultimately benefit Microsoft and, yes, its customers, too. But now comes a tool that allows users to cut-and-paste across Web sites. Microsoft is making the software, called Live Clipboard, available under Creative Commons license. This sounds like the real thing to me, but I confess I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

- When I first started hearing about "Web services" around five years ago, followed by "service-oriented architectures," I think I probably rolled my eyes and thought, oh no, not another development paradigm. After following CASE and several other ill-fated software methodologies, I figured this was probably similarly doomed. But now I'm beginning to think this whole Web services thing might really be catching on. eBay has created an entire Web services ecosystem on its site, and now MapQuest has released tools that let developers create a Web service with maps and directions. Similarly, Yahoo is offering application interfaces to help developers create Web services to tie into its photo, shopping, and other online pieces.

- There's been a fair amount penned about CA's efforts to turn itself around, and I'll try not to repeat what's already been said by my colleagues. Just by way of explanation, I covered CA very closely back in the early to mid-1990s, when the company was having almost-daily disagreements with customers over its licensing and pricing policies, and I wrote many stories about those disagreements. I laughed when I read Rob Preston's opinion column about his first meeting with then-COO Sanjay Kumar, who cursed Rob out over a particular story. That paralleled pretty closely my first meeting with Charles Wang, CA's former CEO. I knew it was going to get interesting when he asked his PR guy to leave the room and then, without asking, reached over the table to shut off my tape recorder. He proceeded to take great issue with one of my stories and alternately asked me if my mother knew and/or approved of what I did for a living, then would wax philosophical about his start in the industry or some other remembrance. (This was sometime around July 1990, and I have to say that was the best one-man version of good cop, bad cop I've ever witnessed--before or since.) But there Rob and I part ways. Rob says he hopes the "new" CA retains some of its edge, but I don't think that's what the company needs right now. Because as feisty and as interesting as Sanjay and Charles were to write about back then, and they were the street-savvy city guys fighting the established software players of the day, the fact remains that the culture they helped create (or perpetuate, in Sanjay's case) nearly ran CA into the ground. I refer not only to the accounting scandal, but to the notion of a "family company" that was dysfunctional in many ways. If CA is to thrive and not just survive, it's time for both new management and a new way of thinking. I believe CEO John Swainson is on the right track here. He's also wise to focus on systems management and Unicenter as one of three key product lines going forward; that's always been a very strong CA suit and one with which customers have traditionally been the happiest. I truly wish CA well in its efforts; many jobs and a chunk of Long Island's economy are riding on the outcome.

Has anything about this industry surprised you lately? Weigh in below.

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