mwang.org

I’ve been trying to contact CA (Computer Associates) to talk to someone in sales regarding a product I’m interested. There’s only a general phone number on the site and no ability to email anyone for more information.

Once you call the number, you are presented with menu upon menu of options.

Bad customer experience.

Over the last two years, SaaS has become a more widely used and accepted means of addressing business needs in corporate IT.  In my own experience, there are definite trade-offs between SaaS and “traditional” application deployments.

In the “pros” column, I love the fact that I don’t deal with servers, connectivity, or software licensing agreements + maintenance.  I don’t deal with upgrades in the traditional sense, and I generally have access to full-suite functionality vs. access to “modules” within a suite which may further drive up costs in the future should I decide to expand usage.

In the “cons” column, I lose some flexibility and “tightness” of integration.  I am beholden to a fixed expense for the life of the application which will rise over time vs. software maintenance which I can choose not to pay when it makes sense not to.  There are relatively high “exit costs” should I decide to switch applications.

That being said, the use of SaaS is growing and I expect at least 25%-30% of my applications by the end of next year to be SaaS.

So, I’ve finally fixed the missing categories on the site and I’ve also taken the liberty of upgrading the site to Wordpress 2.7!

One of my resolutions this year is to start blogging more seriously and more regularly.  We’ll see how long I can keep this up.

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.6 and my categories have just been hosed.  I will be attempting to clean these up in the near future.

[UPDATE] A quick Google search reveals that this is a known and common problem.  The fix looks simple enough but it will have to wait.

When it comes to customer service, Apple has always done me right.

1) iMac intermittent random shutdown - fixed free of charge in 1 day

2) iPhone headset stopped worked in right ear - replaced on the spot with new ones

3) iPhone mute toggle switch works intermittently - iPhone replaced with a new one on the spot

This is why I will gladly keep buying Apple products in the future.

Having been through too many SAP implementations and having dealt with the organization as a customer, I am skeptical as to whether SAP can make the transition to an on-demand service provider.

 SAP ByDesign is vaporware at this point and I’m not convinced that the company has the flexibility or the customer service capability to be a SaaS provider.  Time will tell when this is rolled out for public consumption in 2008.

I’ve just gained new respect for Palm and Apple. 

Palm:  Yes, Palm has cancelled the Foleo.  The Foleo was probably the most ill-conceived product from Palm to-date, and certainly shockingly bad considering it was invented by the same man who brought us the original Palm Pilot.

I still remember when I first got the Palm Pilot 5000 in the winter of 1996.  It was revolutionary to behold.  It changed the way I kept track of contacts and calendars forever (although I did love my paper planner).

Too many businesses will carry forward a product or continue a project even after it is all too apparent that it should be stopped.  It takes guts to admit that you’ve failed, and I applaud Ed Colligan for killing the Foleo.

I hope that Palm’s “next big thing” will be successful.

 Apple:  Apple continues to amaze me as a company.  Steve and Co. continue to churn out product hits, coupled with great marketing and market timing.  They have not missed a beat for years.  Even with a potential PR fiasco on hand with the iPhone price cut, Apple turned it into a coup for itself by giving $100 back to the early adopters (I am one of them).  I cannot recall another company doing this in recent memory.  Moreover, the price cut also represents guts. 

Most other companies in Apple’s position would have milked the popularity of the iPhone for as long as possible.  It tooks guts for foresight to cut the price by 1/3 so that it’s virtually guaranteed to be a runaway bestseller this holiday season.  Steve traded short-term profitability in order to get a revolutionary platform to the masses, and secure its foothold in the smartphone market. 

 Any thoughts?

Well, the next best thing to a free iPhone is iPhoney, which is billed as a free open source iPhone web simulator. Basically, it presents a pixel-perfect 320×480 representation of the iPhone browser so that developers can test their built-for-iPhone websites. Go get it here. Mac only.

Yup, the box from Microsoft arrived yesterday and my 360 is now on its way to Texas for what is hopefully a short repair cycle.

Had a quick debate with myself over whether to get the new iMac or just the new iLife ‘08 and the pragmatic side of me won (thankfully). As a general rule of thumb, I’d like to get at least 3 years of use out of a computer before replacing it (which means my iMac G5 will be “due” May 2008).

I ordered the new iLife ‘08 directly from Apple (with employee discount), which arrived yesterday.

The packaging is nice and small. Inside, you’ll find a registration card and a demo disk for iWork ‘08.

iPhoto

The first and most exciting iLife app for me is the new iPhoto.

For those of you with large iPhoto libraries (I have about 10,000 photos), you will appreciate “Events” which groups your pictures by date. If you have multiple events in one day, you can split them. VERY useful, as folders were getting unwieldy.

Two other features of note are skimming, which allows you to quickly browse your pictures while viewing an Event thumbnail, and hiding, which lets you hide photos you want to keep but don’t necessarily want to look at all the time.

Given the new organization features, I’ve successfully gone through the last year’s worth of photos and properly categorized and organized them all in one evening.

A word of warning - if you use the excellent iPhoto plug-in Keyword Manager, it is currently not compatible with the new iPhoto. The developers have stated that they are working on an update which should be available soon.

Highly recommended - the best consumer photo organizer is now even better.

Thoughts on the new iMovie in Part 2…