:: MIS Insights ::

CNN writes a short article on users petitioning to keep Windows XP:

No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can’t be wowed. They complain about Vista’s hefty hardware requirements, its less-than-peppy performance, occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices and frequent, irritating security pop-up windows.

I don’t get it. If you want (need?) Windows XP, then go ahead and buy as much as you want.

If you know you’ll be buying 4 computers in the next two years and definitely need XP on those machines, then stock up with 4 licenses of XP.

If you don’t know when you’ll be buying a computer, then you need to revisit your upgrade plan.

People who are complaining right now are those that 1) can’t act on what they want 2) don’t have a plan for the future or 3) just like to wing it as challenges come by. Sorry folks, it doesn’t work like that.

There are some things that need to be planned and a system upgrade is one of them. Unlike your mainframe operating system, desktop operating systems were not designed to be useful forever. These operating systems need to be rehauled once in a while because the hardware that they’re talking to — gets upgraded all the time. Patching it up won’t work forever.

So you actually have three options here:

1. Plan nothing and go with the industry’s plan
2. Plan now and buy all the XP licenses you will ever need
3. Give Pipboy $10,000, get a mainframe and never worry about upgrading your OS

:P

Businesses have always had to deal with system upgrade decisions - whether it be in the realm of hardware or software. In the world of constantly evolving information systems, developments proceed in a yin and yang process. At one side, power-hungry and information-crunching software creates the demand for monster hardware. On the other side, overqualified hardware with its abundant computing power allows the improvement of complex software.

Upgrading is a balancing act between cost and risk. As Michael Hillenbrand puts it, managers want to know how much will it cost if I upgrade (cost) and what can happen if I don’t upgrade (risk)?

Many decision-makers (read: managers and accountants) are put off by the cost involved with upgrades:

• Licensing Costs (per machine, per account, per head, per processor, etc.)
• Training (new way of doing things might mean re-training existing users)
• Interruption to Business (installation of hardware and software might cause some downtime during deployment)
• Actual Costs (Planning, Implementation, Support for new system and process)

However, for some, upgrading can address several business concerns too:

• Support (When is the End-of-Life product support of the software? Is the hardware still available? Some legacy software are machine-dependent)
• Compliance (Is our software compliant with our third party supporting software? Will our existing systems pass security and functionality audits?)
• Competitive advantage (Actual benefits that we get from using the new software or hardware [less effort or time needed to provide same or better quality of work] )

With the high impact of software and hardware that we use in our work, knowing the reasons why and why not to upgrade is essential in keeping your business profitable.

Just recently, BusinessWeek reported about the skirmish for human resources between Lenovo and Dell in Asia where top executives from Dell are transferring to Lenovo. To date, 6 key figures have moved out of Dell (ranks 3rd place in Asia according to International Data) towards industry-leader Lenovo.

While such brain drain would have caused big problems to most companies, not under Steve Felice’s watch.

It’s obviously something that we didn’t expect…we are dealing with it. None of these people is irreplaceable.

Brain drain can be fixed with a properly implemented Knowledge Management Program. At the heart of such undertaking, is the objective to retain intangible assets like knowledge and wisdowm within the organization. This usually involves:

Documentation
Procedures and best practices in a company should always be documented. In this way, the basic responsibilities and know-how required in a position can easily be retrieved by the replacements. Documentation can take in lots of forms: manuals, blogs, webcasts, podcasts, audio, video, etc. Day by day, more and more companies are seeing the possible business applications of today’s technologies.

Super-Vision
Rookies can jumpstart their knowledge through a mentoring program. Paired with a senior, rookies can get a taste of visionary guidance from someone who’s been there and done that - Super-Vision. While there might be an abundance of books detailing the concepts and theories of the practice, the shortcuts and lessons from supervisors that don’t make it to the books are priceless.

Grooming
There is a lot of truth in the saying, “Nothing beats experience.” For organizations who want to develop the depth and breadth of their bench, nothing beats being thrown into the actual job. With regards to information-heavy jobs, this is where the thought process gets developed and used well. This goes to show how memorizing stuff in college isn’t really that useful. Or maybe that’s just me talking… Moving on…

Intangible assets like worker experience and know how should be given as much thought as tangible assets like land and property. With a properly trained replacement, filling up a emptied spots in a company can be less expensive (immediate trainings, out-of-budget briefings, etc.) and a lot easier (less disruption of work for people dependent on the vacant job).

Personally, I believe that my job is to make myself obsolete. Whenever I work on systems, I try to make it a point to provide the proper system documentation and training for the users. I want the system to be easy to use and automated as much as possible so that they won’t need me to do their stuff for them. For instance, if they want to update the news section of their site, they don’t have to go to me to upload the document. They can do it themselves by using the form and manual I provide. I want to make it very easy for them to replace me. In that way, clients keep coming back for more.

How about you? Are you obsolete?

Information Technology roughly has six principles that it follows. For any organization that wants to have a secure system, most Consultants, System Administrators and Software Engineers look at the following checklist:

1. Authentication is the process of identifiying someone or something. It is the process which makes sure that only the right people get in to a system.

2. Authorization determines what users can or can not do with the system. Think of it as your list of privileges.

To illustrate the difference between Authentication and Authorization, think of Alice who works at the Accounting department of Stoned Company. Alice can be authenticated or identified with an ID that she has, allowing her to enter the company building. However, Alice might be authorized only with access to the floor where the Accounting department is located.

3. Non-Repudiation is one way to make sure that messages are sent and received by the involved parties. The sender cannot later deny that she sent a message and a receiver cannot deny receiving message.

For instance, if Alice sends an e-mail to Bob, Alice cannot say that “she did not send an email to Bob.” Bob, on the other hand, cannot say, “I did not receive anything from Alice.”

This contractual setup is particularly useful in tracing transactions between parties and assigning responsibility to the people involved.

4. Integrity is making sure that data never gets compromised or changed while in transit between Alice and Bob’s mailboxes. Whether data is unintentionally corrupted along the way due to lost packets over the internet or a cracker intentionally alters the message, Integrity mechanisms must be in place to make sure that the message arrives the way it was sent.

5. Confidentiality, on the other hand, is making sure that only the intended recepients receive the message. If Bob sends a message intended for Alice, Eve must not be able to read the message. Eve might intercept it, but must not be understandable for her. This is usually accomplished by using Cryptographic technologies.

6. Availability. The availablility of services anytime is one of IT’s main selling points. That’s why hardware and software solution providers are working hand-in-hand to craft solutions that bring consumers the most nines (ex. 99.999999% uptime).

This is just an introduction of the big topic that IT Security is. Stay tuned as we go through each of the principles along the way.

Google is now offering its search services for news archives. From the Google’s mouth:

News archive search provides an easy way to search and explore historical archives. Users can search for events, people, ideas and see how they have been described over time… Search results include both content that is accessible to all users and content that requires a fee.

Though according to BusinessWeek, Google won’t get any payments for offering the service. Whatever prices the articles fetch, the article providers get all of it.

There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
I don’t have anything against Google - not a day goes by without me using Google. It has made information (and sadly, trash) from the web more accessible. So, thanks, Google! However, hearing the “free service” on the part of Google makes me wonder, is it really free? From my Economics 101 class a few years back, Mr. Cielito Habito told us that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. There has to be something in it for Google…

• Ads. Most of online news websites survive or thrive by selling ad space over the internet. After taking Google’s News Archive Search for a ride, I found out that around 3 out of 5 results had Google Ads in the site. If the site didn’t have any Google Ads, there’s a high probability of the in-site search being powered by Google. Leave it to Google to increase the visibility of their products.
• Quasi-Portal. Unlike Yahoo! and MSN whose portals push content to the customer, Google is doing everything to make their services do the opposite - Google wants the customer to pull content. Following the “Customers want everything Customized” principle, this makes the Google user experience more attractive than the others. Hell, I even stumbled upon Google Alerts this morning while I was checking this service out!
• Libraries. If Google proves successful in this service, the mastery they will get out of this free service will allow them to charge for their services on government and university libraries in the future. Imagine the prospects of digitization and archiving of all the old news stored in microfilm. Think of how much aid this can be for students and researchers.

I don’t mean to sound sarcastic nor do I intend to sound like a Google-fanboi. However, the ability to harness data into meaningful information is something that has made Management Information Systems a real reality today. My mornings are dedicated to reading magazines, informative blogs and online gazettes. If Google News works the way it was intended to be, then my daily “Connect-the-dots” routine will be a lot easier, if not faster to accomplish.