By ashvil on 5/30/2004 1:35 PM

Xtras.Net is offering FREE XDN Professional for .NET Bloggers during May 2004.  If you are a .NET blogger, see Mike's post for how to get your free XDN membership.

This is a great idea to spread the word. I was planning to buy some .NET components from Component Source but this will make me look at buying from Xtras.Net since they seem to be offering good discounts to members.

By ashvil on 5/30/2004 1:35 PM

Xtras.Net is offering FREE XDN Professional for .NET Bloggers during May 2004.  If you are a .NET blogger, see Mike's post for how to get your free XDN membership.

This is a great idea to spread the word. I was planning to buy some .NET components from Component Source but this will make me look at buying from Xtras.Net since they seem to be offering good discounts to members.

By ashvil on 5/28/2004 1:52 PM

Now that Mono is nearing a 1.0 release, Miguel and his team needs to make sure that they promote the Ecosystem and create an economy around Mono.

Since Mono supports ASP.NET, Novell needs to make sure that they line up support from the ASP.NET marketplace.

• Vendors like Component One, Janus , Infragistics, etc. should be there saying our components work with Mono.
   
• ISPs like Rapidsite, Webhost4life, etc. should be there with offerings to host ASP-NET apps under Mono/Linux.
   
• Books writers and .NET experts should be there with book updates on how to configure your application to run on Mono.
  
• Launch a web based catalog like Windows Catalog with Mono solutions and offer self service certification tools
   
• Vendors with ASP-NET solutions should be there talking how their solution works on Mono.
  

The goal should be to make sure that all ASP.NET ISVs and developers think of supporting Mono. In short, the Mono launch should be about .NET vendors offering Solutions and Services on Mono and not about Mono.

Mono needs to learn a lesson from Linux (and I think Miguel understands this). It is not how user friendly, or stable, or cheap Linux is. It's about how many applications run on it.

Mono will have to fight for the battle of mind share with NET ISVs and developers and needs to attract atleast 20% of the .NET developer community to build applications, sell components, sell books, sell hosting around it, or else it will be consigned to the niche software status only.

By ashvil on 5/26/2004 5:16 PM

Joel has written a great foreword for Mike Gunderloy's  book "From Coder to Developer". I  have interview many people who when asked their job function said - Coder. Of course, all those folks got rejected.

Mike's book saves me the trouble of explaining why I don't hire coders. If you think of yourself as a coder, please buy this book.

By ashvil on 5/25/2004 2:52 AM

With Microsoft's announcement of Visual Studio Team System, we finally will (sometime next year?) have a software that focus on the entire software development lifecycle. I remember talking with Adam Bosworth, General Manager of Developer tools, in February of 1995 that his division should concentrate on the entire lifecycle process. Looks like it took 10 years to get that suggestion implemented. :-)

With Eclipse also moving in the same direction, I would predict that in the future, software development would focus more on understanding and translating domain knowledge and less on how to code a feature.

So if your job position is a coder, you better starting looking for alternatives.

By ashvil on 5/25/2004 1:45 AM

One of the main reasons for Microsoft's success has been Compatibility. The fact that millions of hours go into compatibility testing is a testimony of that fact.

After years of understanding that, Intel seemed to forget that when designing their 64 bit architecture. Imagine a new version of Windows that does not run the current Windows software. Not even Microsoft can pull that off.

By making Itanium not compatible with the x86 instruction set, Intel gave AMD the head start in the 64 bit market. Right now, Intel is ending up as a follower in the x86 processor market.

Lesson One in the Computer industry - Compatibility is the key

By ashvil on 5/13/2004 1:46 PM

Microsoft ISV Executive Strategy Day Comments

Dilip Mistry started the day with a short presentation on how India is the place to be, etc.

Mark Young continued it with a lively presentation on trends for ISVs with the next generation of Windows solutions. Mark made a good case on why to partner with MS.

One of disappointing things in the Conference, while MS talked on Partners, they did not show offerings from Partners that enhanced the .NET ecosystem.

For example, there is a rich array of third party .NET components available that drastically reduce Development time. MS needs to learn to promote the ecosystem rather then just their offerings.


Colin Png spoke about
SOA
The paradigm shift from COM to Web Services.
Demonstrated the Information Bridge Framework (IBF).
Reporting Services in Yukon, the next generation SQL Server.
Demoed Longhorn, Avalon, WinFS, Indigo.
'Solution Marketplace', a fully interactive web-based community designed to bring ISV partners and business users together.

Colin talked about multiple topics but the one which made most sense was the Solution Marketplace. This looks like a great tool to bring all the players and customers in the .NET ecosystem together.

I hope that Solution Marketplace becomes like a .NET bazaar where you can find other partners that can help you to get to market quickly


Manish Chopra talked about
With MS's acquisitions of Navision and Great Plains, MS has integrated Line of Business Applications into their framework and encourage ISVs to build their applications on top of this framework.
This 'Industry Enabling' Layer supports partner success in verticals.
This provides multiple partnering, engagement and distribution opportunities to ISVs

I still think that getting into the Business Application market was a bad move for MS. It raises too many questions on competing with their partners. Saying that the Business App market is now a Horizontal play just adds salts to ISVs which were hurt.

At the end of the day, MS (or any big company) will go where the money is. MS needs to be more honest with their ISVs and tell them that we will go where the big money is, rather than we are not competing with you since the our apps target the Horizontal markets.


Vlad Martynov enumerated the requirements of the ISV Partner Program and the benefits available to the various levels of the Partner Program.

MS needs to explain the new partner program in more detail. The new points systems need to be clarified. One need that MS should address is to bring it's partners together more often, maybe every quarter and help the partners connect to each other.

MS needs to make the logo certification more easy by providing the tools so that the ISV can self certify their offerings first and then submit it to the official certification program. It would make sense to have another logo for Self Certified applications.

Also, ISVs build solutions not just on MS's tools but other components from other vendors. MS needs to make sure that tools and components from other vendors also meet the certification criteria. This is important because if I develop a solution using a component from Vendor A and I fail the certification tests, since the vendor's component is not behaving correctly, I will fail the logo certification criteria.  


Sushant Dwivedy's team works with various ISVs in identifying the right program for them, sales pitches and provides valuable marketing material and information about the new MSFT products and helps the ISVs in making the sale.

Sushant tried to make the case for more Product companies in India. The biggest problem here is the lack of talent both in terms of management and workforce and a lot needs to be done here. The Industry, Govt. and Educational Institutions need to pitch in to solve this problem.


Overall the day was good and these kinds of interactions make sense. ISVs complained on MS's lack of credibility in the Enterprise, MS's slipping schedules with SQL Server Yukon and Visual Studio 2004(5), details on partner programs, etc.

If MS puts itself in the shoes of the ISVs they will find that ISV want to build and deploy solutions and they don't use exclusively MS's tools. They use tools and components from the Microsoft ecosystem and the partnership programs should be designed around that. Also, the ecosystem is the main value in the MS platform and is responsible for the all the billions in MS's market valuation   :-)


In short, what an ISV is looking at - is to partner with the Microsoft Ecosystem and not only with MS.

By ashvil on 5/9/2004 10:33 AM

Microsoft has posted the build that was distributed in the WinHEC conference on MSDN. It great that MS is posting interim builds but they can really enhance the user experience by the doing the following …

Create a Virtual PC image of Longhorn and Visual Studio that I can install and play on my Windows XP desktop. One click install.

The current mechanism of installing Longhorn on a unused PC cuts down on the number of people who can offer great feedback to MS.

Yes I know, I could install Virtual PC 2004 and then install Longhorn under that but that asking too much of my time upfront, when I just want to play with it.

By ashvil on 3/4/2004 2:07 PM

This is a short story I read many years back in a Reader's Digest magazine.

Read it and you will figure out why a Eight Cow wife or employee is worth a lot more than a One Cow one.

Johnny Lingo's 8 Cow Wife
- condensed from Woman's Day Patricia McGerr
When I sailed to Kiniwata, an island in the Pacific, I took along a notebook. After I got back it was filled with descriptions of flora and fauna, native customs and costume. But the only note that still interests me is the one that says: "Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father." And I don’t need to have it in writing. I’m reminded of it every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn. I want to say to them, "You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife."

Johnny Lingo wasn’t exactly his name. But that’s what Shenkin, the manager of the guest house on Kiniwata, called him. Shenkin was from Chicago and had a habit of Americanizing the names of the islanders. But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections. If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo would put me up. If I wanted to fish he could show me where the biting was best. If it was pearls I sought, he would bring the best buys. The people of Kiniwata all spoke highly of Johnny Lingo. Yet when they spoke they smiled, and the smiles were slightly mocking.

"Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining," advised Shenkin. "Johnny knows how to make a deal."
"Johnny Lingo! A boy seated nearby hooted the name and rocked with laughter.
"What goes on?" I demanded. "everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up. Let me in on the joke."
"Oh, the people like to laugh," Shenkin said, shruggingly. "Johnny's the brightest, the strongest young man in the islands, And for his age, the richest."
"But if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?"
"Only one thing. Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father eight cows!

I knew enough about island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one. "Good Lord!" I said, "Eight cows! She must have beauty that takes your breath away." "She’s not ugly," he conceded, and smiled a little. "But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands."
"But then he got eight cows for her? Isn’t that extraordinary?"
"Never been paid before."
"Yet you call Johnny’s wife plain?"
"I said it would be kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was scared of her own shadow."
"Well," I said, "I guess there’s just no accounting for love."
"True enough," agreed the man. "And that’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get special satisfaction from the fact that the sharpest trader in the islands was bested by dull old Sam Karoo."
"But how?"
"No one knows and everyone wonders. All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one. Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’"
"Eight cows," I murmured. "I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo."
"And I wanted fish. I wanted pearls. So the next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi. And I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians. And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery. We sat in his house and talked. Then he asked, "You come here from Kiniwata?"
"Yes."
"They speak of me on that island?"
"They say there’s nothing I might want they you can’t help me get."
He smiled gently. "My wife is from Kiniwata."
"Yes, I know."
"They speak of her?"
"A little."
"What do they say?"
"Why, just..." The question caught me off balance. "They told me you were married at festival time."
"Nothing more?" The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more.
They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows." I paused.
"They wonder why."
"They ask that?" His eyes lightened with pleasure. "Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?"
I nodded.
"And in Nurabandi everyone knows it too." His chest expanded with satisfaction. "Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita."
So that’s the answer, I thought: vanity.

And then I saw her. I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me. "You admire her?" he murmured. "She...she’s glorious. But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata," I said.

"There’s only one Sarita. Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata." "She doesn’t. I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo."
"You think eight cows were too many?" A smile slid over his lips. "No. But how can she be so different?"
"Do you ever think," he asked, "what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when the women talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two?" This could not happen to my Sarita."
"Then you did this just to make your wife happy?"
"I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. You say she is different This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman in the islands." "Then you wanted -"
"I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman."
"But —" I was close to understanding.
"But," he finished softly, "I wanted an eight-cow wife."

By ashvil on 3/4/2004 1:54 PM

Richard Feynman's book Surely You are Joking, Mr. Feynman is a must read for any professional.  This is an excerpt from his book ...

In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head for headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he's the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.
— Richard Feynman

Steve McConnell uses this to draw a contrast between two different organizational development styles: "process-oriented" and "commitment-oriented" development in his article. At the end of the day, It's a debate between competence vs. incompetence or Cargo Cult vs. Smart People.