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What If Yoda Ran IBM?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Dec 05, 2007 06:04 PM
from the and-green-gene-was-born dept.
from the and-green-gene-was-born dept.
Esther Schindler writes to mention that one IT leader who came from big business found himself in quite another world when he transitioned into a smaller business, specifically with respect to the amount of attention from their vendors. He presents an amusing approach with a familiar twist. "Not only are the IBMs of the world leaving money on the table, they're also risking future sales. The IT leaders at small organizations will in many cases be employed by larger organizations someday. Why alienate them? Vendors could engage IT leaders in small organizations now and build brand loyalty. How could they make such a business model work? Let's imagine (with apologies to George Lucas) what Yoda might do if he were running a large consultancy."
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All the software would be written in Forth (Score:5, Funny)
Why not in C? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why not in C? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Did you say that with a lifp? (Score:5, Funny)
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Yoda didn't face Wall Street (Score:5, Insightful)
Yoda doesn't have a chance.
ahh Yoda.. (Score:2, Funny)
Tag (Score:5, Funny)
Leaving money on the table is not always bad (Score:5, Insightful)
These build a healthy industry in which you can play. Complete dominance of an industry is unhealthy (look at Old IBM or M$). Having competition gives you feedback which is vital for the long term success of a company. Trying to be all things to all people dilutes your business strategy too. Far better to leave some opportunites unexploited.
Re:Leaving money on the table is not always bad (Score:5, Informative)
So it is not that the huge vendors are doing the little guys a favor by passing on small deals, it's that it just doesn't make any sense for them to pick them up. Small vendors fill a niche that large vendors can't afford to.
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Re:Leaving money on the table is not always bad (Score:5, Insightful)
1. They have expertise in the kinds of hardware you'd find in a huge corporate datacenter. Your local small business probably doesn't need an EMC SAN, but a credit card company would. When this kind of stuff breaks you need major help in a major way - and you pay them in gold.
2. They can handle enormous projects and be a single-point-of-accountability. Just write an eight-figure check to IBM and your problem goes away. And you have somebody to sue if it doesn't. Not just anybody can burn through that much cash and actually deliver something.
Often big companies are a big waste to deal with, but in the right circumstances they are the best choice.
For example, I've had two occasions to have to work with a consultant from Oracle. Both times they were insanely expensive, but both times they were worth the expense. It just doesn't make sense to have that kind of detailed expertise on-staff at all times, but when you really need them it is amazing who they can dig up. I saw one fix an extremely obscure file corruption on a VAX-based database product that hadn't been sold in about a decade. I consider myself fairly skilled in tinkering with software, but I wouldn't have known where to begin. They got it up and running in what seemed like a few hours, and educated some of our staff on what they did. They also gave a few recommendations that kept the problem from recurring. In the end they were well worth their price.
If you're a small business you're almost better off finding somebody local - not necessarily a single person, but a small IT firm that will take care of you long-term. IBM doesn't hire people from your neighborhood - they'd burn your budget just flying people in. You just have to be careful that you don't end up with somebody without the discipline to solve your problems for the long-term (tossed-together solutions are just asking for trouble).
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I don't think so? (Score:2, Informative)
EASY! (Score:5, Funny)
Some of the companies would then get really bent out of shape and turn evil later, while other ones would just annoy Yoda until he gave up and threw them a support contract he never has to fulfill since he dies!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Vader is Luke's father. Oh, and snape kills dumbledor ( after a gay affair ).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:EASY! (Score:5, Funny)
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Yodanomics (Score:5, Funny)
Wow. Thank goodness that didn't happen.
Vista of Death will destroy iRebels (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Vista of Death will destroy iRebels (Score:5, Funny)
Defeat his apprentice, Darth Chairidius, first you must.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wow! It worked! Here, lemme try:
Please mod funny.
Thank you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
yeah, jar jar. (Score:2, Funny)
Don't bring George Lucas into this. You'll end up with a lanky, obnoxious rastafarian running the place.
Yoda quotes about running IBM: (Score:4, Funny)
Feel the force...force of Cell processor.
Conference not with a phone, but with the force.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yoda quotes about running IBM: (Score:5, Funny)
"Begun, this clone war has".
(in reference to the emergence of Compaq)
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If Yoda ran IBM (Score:5, Funny)
The CEO would be Steve Ballmer, the company would be run out of Redmond, WA, and it would market the dominant desktop OS in the world. But Yoda would think he was still in control running things out of Yarmonk.
On the other hand, their servers would run quite well in damp conditions.
Yoda would use the force (Score:2)
Yoda would use the force. Maybe instill do what you say you will and force it into the system. No exaggerated promises, caveats or missed deadlines. Perhaps be honest with the customer and not be so much on the dark side.
Not just an IBM issue, goes for 90% of the service providing companies out there. The force only grows while the dark side is not present in greater numbers than the purist side.
IBM doesn't do much well at all... (Score:2, Interesting)
Other than that, what's good about them?
Servers:
IBM xSeries are junk
IBM iSeries are treading water and relegated to vertical markets
IBM pSeries makes Sun look cheap.
Software:
Tivoli - Sucks
DB2 - Ok
Lotus - Sucks
Rational - Double Sucks
Consulting services are the same as any big vendor. If y
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've come into deals where I have to take my hat off to the sales person because I have no understanding how they made the deal happen. That's as much a complement as it is a criticism.
The hardware is pretty decent, but you have to pay for quality and support. I don't know how many other vendors out there will be on-site in IBM's timeframe.
The software lineup is made by acquisition. The one line that I kn
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:IBM doesn't do much well at all... (Score:5, Interesting)
What better products do you have to offer than rational?
Bonus points if it's something that comes with guarantees on reliability and support.
Who else makes a system as powerful and capable as z?
Extra credit - who designed the chips in all of the next gen consoles and is raking in the cash as a result?
I'm not any of those things you mention, but your rant is terribly shortsighted.
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Wow, bitter much? (Score:3, Informative)
We use clearcase to store and replicate our source archive globally. Its flexible branching strategies allow us to work effectively on multiple releases of our codebase, and checking files in takes a few seconds.
I don't know what this "History explorer" you're talking about is, but the graphical version representation makes it very easy to see which version you're currently looking at and which you want.
It sounds like both your admin and yourself are totally incompeten
WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
Yoda? Already in charge. (Score:2)
Recalling just what part Yoda played in the first 3 episodes, I'd say he's already running IBM's consulting. That's why small businesses don't get any attention.
finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
But.
The only people running Os/400 are huge financial institutions who's annual I.T. budget ranges in the Millions of dollars. I can't get a copy of OS/400 to play with. Just can't do it. Not unless i want to spend a month's salary on it. Even then, i can't really DO anything with it (maybe have one connection to the database at a time).
Now take linux/mysql. I use this combo ALL OVER THE PLACE. Any time i need to throw a database down, its a linux box with Mysql. Every. Single. Time.
Why?
Because i grew up playing around in redhat, suse, mandrake, and gentoo boxes and I feel like i know linux inside and out (although i'm sure i don't). I have complete confidence in myself to order some hardware, install a distro on it, and have a database up and crunching within a day.
I have NEVER tried this with an IBM product because i simply CAN'T! I can't risk that significant of a portion of my budget for a toy that I may or may not be able to get working in time.
I guess it works the same as what happened to my beloved coke machine today. They upped the price to $1.25. Nobody drinks coke anymore except the people who are REALLY addicted to it.
Bastards.
What If Yoda ran IBM? (Score:3, Funny)
newsflash: (Score:5, Insightful)
Big Co. pays more attention to potential customers who actually have money to spend with them. Also, some products are out of reach of small companies.
Wah. If you don't know that a 17 year old, dressed scruffily, who hasn't shaved for 5 days, will receive less attention at a Mercedes dealership than the nattily dressed 40-ish man, you just don't live in the real world. Sure: the 17 year old could be Bill freaking Gates, or a rockstar. Or might become one some day, but will have been so soured on the treatment received that they vow never to buy a Mercedes.
But frankly, almost all of the time, talking to the 17 year old is a waste of time at best, and at worst you lose the customer that is really ready and willing to spend money with you because you've ignored them.
Y, it sucks. So it goes. You might argue that one of the ways that Microsoft got as popular as they did with CIO types is because everyone uses them at home, so 17 year olds that get their start troubleshooting home computers go on to CIO jobs and stick with Microsoft because they know it. But, frankly, if that was all of the answer Apple would rule the world--everyone in a certain generation used them at school, but it did not help their adoption in enterprise.
btw: can we stop linking to CIO mag, please? It has the absolute worst S/N ratio of any online mag out there, and the article content generally isn't that good either.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, the articles are written by and for CIOs. When bullshitters are your target market ...
Yoda speaks backwards. (Score:4, Funny)
You know what happened? IBM consultants met someone a bovine coprologist even mightier than them, and that scared them.
Bullshit Bingo? (Score:3, Funny)
Another implication of the article is that only large consulting firms can do a quality job that adheres to best practices. "I'd like access to the same expertise that my colleagues at larger companies have." Could he really mean, he'd like the same expertise that his colleagues have at larger companies but for $15/hr. Isn't that what Craigslist is for?
I got out my bullshit bingo card and almost won...
strategic concerns
providing outstanding technology to our colleagues
strategic value
operational excellence
operational excellence
technological vision
technical vision
business vision
operational excellence
tried-and-true management principles
best practices
If only the same phrases weren't used over and over.
easy (Score:4, Funny)
Engaging the wrong type of firm (Score:5, Informative)
Big blue takes a pass on work that is "this small", but that's what the partner network is for. We don't have the resources for huge projects, but we are perfectly geared for projects of this scope. Not only that, but we are focused enough to deliver quality product and quality customer service where big blue cannot. Additionally, due to our having a small but long-serving tech staff, we are not "green" as the writer complains. An organization the size of IBM simply is ineffective at serving projects of this size.
He should have, or the IBM reps he was in discussion with, contacted an IBM business partner in his area that could have helped him. IBM Business partners have always been part of IBM's strategic vision and the author of this piece completely ignores them and the role they play.
Idiot (Score:3, Insightful)
He has what is a small to medium business and wants the 900-pound gorilla of the consulting business to cater to him? Turn this around. What is wrong with all those small to medium consulting businesses? Are they too small for his company to pay attention to them?
Hypocrite.
Can we inject some monetary reality here? (Score:5, Informative)
Sales time. Believe it or not, good sales people cost a lot of money. You have the choice of hiring a bad salesperson, who doesn't know what he's talking about or doing, or a good one. So a salesperson will run you, even in a crappy small company, $60k per year (plus 20% for bennies and taxes). Now, IBM needs someone who is, shall we say, better than good. They have lots of products, and they have to be able to deal with everyone from an analyst to a CIO. Not only that, but they have team behind them, usually comprised of some inside people and a sales engineer or two, to answer questions.
So, realistically, you have about $500,000 in salaries, commissions, and benefits in a small sales team.
Let's divide that by $25k. 25/500 = 20. That means that the sales guy, just to cover his costs, has to sell 20 deals a year to small businesses to make a living. Oh, wait. That's not the case. He needs to make a decent profit, as well. Lets put it at 25% or so, conservatively. So we're up to $625,000, or 25 deals a year.
Oh, wait. That doesn't include the salaries of the engineer who does the work. Tack on an extra $150k or so for a top notch "Jedi Master". And that would be cheap. So were' up to $650k plus 25% margin, or $812,500. Or about 32.5 deals per year.
Now, we all know that even a lightsabre wielding Jedi Master sales guy won't close every deal. So lets say, which is a huge gimme, that he can close 50% of the deals he is given. So he must now, conservatively, talk to 65 customers a year, bare minimum, to earn back his money and make a little profit.
Oh, shit, we forgot expenses. You know, office space, cell phones, internet, computers, support, travel, lunches, dinners, visits to strip clubs.
Tack on another $50k per year for that. Or 2 more deals closed (we're up to 34.5, if you were paying attention) or 69 customers talked to if he was lucky.
That means we're averaging more than a deal closed per week, and, let me tell you, it doesn't happen that way.
And we haven't even scratched the surface of expenses, including things like marketing, customer acquisition costs, back end support costs.
The reason that IBM doesn't do this isn't because they don't want to. Its because they *CAN NOT*. This is not their business. They have a defined business plan. I can guarantee you that nowhere in that plan do they deal directly with SMB's for $25k deals.
Instead, they have a very established partner network to deal with this. And some of those partners are quite good, quite knowledgeable, and employ guys with as much if not more experience than some of those IBM engineers. Sure, there are bozos. But if you do due dilegence in selecting a partner, you should be able to eliminate those quickly and quietly, especially if you have big business experience.
Note: all of the big boys have a partner network. IBM, HP, EMC, Cisco. Plus all the others. Every single one. Some of them have gone to the extent of putting their top partners into their traditional stronghold space of Fortune 1000. Cisco is notable for having put partners into their Named Accounts many years ago.
As full disclosure, I work for a company that has, at one time or the other, partnered with every one of those guys. Some of those partnerships were great. Some were a disaster. In every single one, we had highly qualified engineers with decades of experience in multi-discipline IT skills supporting our customers. In fact, one of those partners (won't name them but their one of the biggest of the big) used to slip us business on the side when the customer was unwilling to pay their rates (~$350/hour, travel exclusive) because they knew we could do the same job at less than half the cost.
The point of being a small IT specialty business is to be able to provide a service to a completely different kind of customer. My company has ~25 full time employees in house. We have 450 or so on-sit
If Yoda ran IBM? (Score:3, Funny)
Just make an OS/3 based on Linux and call it OS/3 1.0 Yoda. Modify WINE to run the OS/2 API into Linux as well. Make sure that all IBM Windows software works on WINE, and has Linux ports as well.
Instead OS/3 1.0 Yoda on every new IBM PC sold, and also port it to the Mainframe, iSeries, pSeries, etc systems as well.
Design Yoda to be so simple that Young Jedis can use it as well as the older adults with no computer knowledge at all.
Take the Firewall/AntiVirus protection and call it "The Force".
License OS/3 1.0 Yoda to other OEMs like Compaq, Dell, Gateway, ASUS, Acer, etc.
If Yoda ran IBM (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dear Lord (Score:4, Funny)
Learning to identify your core competencies so you can leverage your resources in an effort to devlop effective intra-deparmental synergy
thus allowing you to devote time to identifying emerging paradigms is what being an MBA is all about
Belthize
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:$25,000 for disaster recovery? (Score:5, Insightful)
The economics of consulting firms are such that you have to charge about 3 times the payroll cost of your staff to cover your costs and make some money. So, if you have a reasonably experienced consultant, who makes $120k a year (which is lowish in the bigger markets), you need to bill that person at $360k a year. Figure 70% utilization, or about 1400 hours a year, and you have to bill the guy at at least $250/hr. That's the economics of the big firms. The only ecosystems in which those firms can deliver value commensurate with their cost are the large client organizations. Hence, they quite rationally focus on them. I won't offer an opinion as to whether they can in fact deliver to that value - that depends on the team, the people, and the problem.
This leaves a significant market out there which can be served by sole proprietor consultants for $100-150/hr. The author needs to go find himself one of those folks, and quit whining. If he had a business head on his shoulders, as he insists that he does, he'd be able to figure that out. Since he can't, I'm not sure I'd view him as likely to move up in the world to those larger firms, and I suspect that the vendors have figured him out as a weak player. I have never had trouble getting vendor focus when working in small firms, so it isn't impossible.
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