simondelliott

The hidden cost of planned obsolescence

The postwar American industrial boom saw car sales take off. But by the time of the moon landings the car manufacturers had noticed that their sales were parked in a steady orbit and possibly were about to fall back to earth.

At that time the automotive industry attracted the most brilliant minds, and collectively they could not figure out why this fall in growth was happening. The most popular car manufacturers had complete control over the domestic car market, and yet their sales figures were falling. After some long and hard head scratching they realized that the reason for their poor performance was due to their past success.

The reason that sales had fallen off was quite simply because they had achieved market saturation. Everyone who wanted a car had a car. The only sales that the market leaders were making were due to the replacement of old worn out products.

As we all know shareholders demand growth and the market leading position was not sustainable.
So what was the solution?

Planned obsolescence

Quite simply the cars had to wear out faster so that they could be replaced faster and sales would start to rise again. Instead of engineering components to the highest quality they were machined to an adequate quality which caused them to expire in a known length of time. By today’s standards we consider this an environmental crime, however this practice and this method of controlling a market is a cornerstone of modern business practice.

Times and fashion change. Since the 80’s the ultrapreneurs and brilliant minds have been drawn into the world of computing.  But people are not the only thing that has migrated to the world of computing many of the working practices of the car industry have also made the leap into cyberspace.

How long will my software last?

For the past 10 years computer developers have been toying with the Toyota production system, many of the principles of kaizen are behind google, facebook and other modern world engineering feats.

But automotive business practices have also found a place in the new world of computing. When you look at the releases of windows you will see that closed source companies are clearly using their position as market leaders to make the most out of the principles of planned obsolescence.  All the languages, databases, office products and addon packs that they sell all have a shelf life. The next version of a computer language includes fixes for lots of issues, but in order for it to maintain a market leading position it must also introduce new issues.  This may sound a little unfair to the big software companies but they are not the only ones, planned obsolescence is a part of the very fabric of the IT market. Step back in time just a little further and you will see that everyone is doing the same thing.

It makes good business sense that your software is just good enough – not great, but just enough to last a couple of years before you need to buy the new more stylish, more secure, more better upgrade.

Take software depreciation into account.

The next time you look at new software think about how long that software is valid for and take the upgrade cost into account. Lots of packages offer free upgrades but do they offer free upgrades to the latest version? If you deploy a Windows 7 license what is the cost of the inevitable upgrade to windows 8, 9, 10 … ? Will your servers be running Oracle 11 for ever? How much will it cost you to change your business processes, how much do your people cost you, do you have to train every time you upgrade? Do you have to rewrite your application endlessly?

Comparing open source to closed source

Many governments and enterprises are looking into opensource as a possible route to cut costs. And I have been involved in a number of conversations looking at just how much an opensource alternative really costs.

The reality is that the short term costs are roughly similar. However when you look at the long term costs the equation becomes very different and this is because of the hidden cost of planned obsolescence.

Designed to fail.

My point of view is that it stands to reason that license revenue model software is deliberately designed to fail. It’s just good business.

However the practice of planned obsolescence is not only anti consumer;  wasting their time, resources and money, but it is also anti engineer.  If an engineer makes something using components of a computer language that are designed to fail over time then their products will also degrade, effecting the longevity of their product and the amount of time that their product can be retailed for.

I am primarily someone who makes a living by making and selling software, and for me this is the most compelling argument for using opensource throughout the whole delivery chain.

The reason I support opensource is not because it saves me money … it makes me money.

A list of some blogs I like to read

Some one asked me what blogs I read. It’s a bit like asking what your favorite films are (of which there are thousands, but I cannot think of one)

To answer the question, generally speaking, Try and get to the source of good thinking or good writing for example I would rather read Kent Beck’s thoughts about integration and development than IBM’s or Microsoft’s, simply because he was the inventor of so many modern practices.

A lot of people will recommend reading blogs by people such as Seth Goddin, Guy Kawasaki, John Medina. I find these too ego centric and way too American for my taste. However Clay Shirky is an exception, and is well worth a read (try and find the “hear comes everybody” video).

Avoid the blogs that have reactive commentary, it is often dull and uninspiring. The Cap Gemini and Gartner blogs fit into this category.

Here are some good links

Kent Beck
Software design and general development guru

http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/

Core 77
often show cases good student design (furniture and stuff), can take itself a little too seriously sometimes

http://www.core77.com/blog/news/inhabitat_fathers_day_green_gift_guide_13702.asp

Martin Fowler
Software design Goliath
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/

Fail Blog
Very very funny
http://failblog.org/

Wired UK
Editorial and commentary about all sorts of technology stuff
http://www.wired.co.uk/

Community Spark
Often insightful but mostly common sense about online communities
http://www.communityspark.com

Oreily
Fountain of all technical knowledge
http://radar.oreilly.com/

Charlie Booker
Writer of Nathan Barley and Screen wipe, very funny and quite angry man

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker

Top 10 companies that I would like to buy

Over the past year I have been keeping tabs companies that I have come across that I feel are really going places.
Here is my top ten list. To get on the list the company has to have a neat way of working or a great product. The company has to have a buisness model that will do well from the downturn and be in a position to benefit from acquisition or investment.

1. Sulake – the inventors of Habbo Hotel, and in my mind a great example of how to commercialize virtual worlds
2. emoderation – simply put … a great service. This company will police your online brand and protect it from damaging comments, contributors and content. This is precicly the kind of service that will grow and grow.
3. Intuit – a really simple online CRM system. This is the future of CRM within companies.
4. splash up – Faux Labs – this is to photoshop what google doc is to word. It is a great product and it works pretty well
5. ravelry – These guys are genius. They have jumped on to the expanding Knitting market and really made an awsome community product. There is alot that can be learned from how they have managed to scheive such a great product.
6. zoho – AdventNet – an online suite of applications including databases, CRM and many more standard corporate tools.
7. Madgex – awsome stuff on identity
8. Animoto – a leading innovation based company that is making some crazy little applications. Again its not their product that is as important as how they managed to make it.
9. Playfish – It took along time for me to decide to put this one into my top ten, It was only when I found myself and my son playing one of their games that I realized the power of their business model.
10. DimDim – a straight forward web conferencing solution

Visio tip: how to make your diagram look good in word

Tip for making visio look great when placed in a word doc

• save visio diagram as a png set the resolution to printer (300dpi)
• use photoshop to crop the image down to just the picture, you can also compress it here if its too big
• go to word and insert the image into the document

if you really want your diagram to look great, and you have a little more time … then do it in CS3

Why Googleing is like a Tenis Racket (or Racquet)

Have you ever played a racquet game, such as tennis, squash or badminton?

If you have,  someone will have told you you that to be really good at the game you have let the raquet become an extension of your arm, body and mind. This relationship bettween our bodies minds and the tools we use has been well described and is refelected in our cultures and history.

Here are some examples of cultural or historic references  to man and machine.

• Mad Max a man and his car, against anarchy
• Ahab and ship against nature
• Vasily Zaytsef and rifle fighting for the motherland

The relationship is especially evident in eastern culture and have you ever heard that “The sword is the soul of the Samurai”?

In recent times technology has freed its self from its physical manifestation, new innovations are increasingly using  the same kit. Only recently has the internet  become available anytime any where, and society is way behind the implications of the technology.

A large number of Jobs and Disciplines give an advantage to people who either have a good memory, or have the ability to find information quickly. But the search engine makes this skill less important.

It is now important to be able to create, derive or connect.

In the same way that a car, rifle, sword or tennis racquet can become part of your body, so can a search engine. To become a master of the game you have to let google become an extension of your mind.

Drawing for the security team

Okay so, im not the best at this in the world but I can kinda draw a little. Any hoo, the honorable security team at my company have decided that they must reinforce their message with some cartoons. I hope you like this.