Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Wal-Mart CIO Interview. Wal-Mart is the world's largest company and one which has consistently used technology as a competitive advantage.  In this article, their CIO talks about how they manage IT systems.  He has three key philosophies behind his IT strategy: The first philosophy is to run a centralized information system for our operations all over the world, and we run that from Arkansas. The second is to have common systems and common platforms. The third is to be merchants first and technologists second. In this day of XML standards, one might question why someone cares about (1) and (2) until you start asking about cost.  I like to say that an engineer is someone who can do for a dollar what any fool can do for two.  I've also learned, the hard way, that XML is great for interoperability when you can't control both ends of the system (or don't expect to in the future).  When you do control all the pieces, however, XML is a whole lot of parsing for nothing.  Its hard to get people to see the wisdom in the first two philosophies.  There's a natural tendency to autonomy, decentralization, and disparate systems.  Many confuse these statements with geographic or system centralization, which is not the case.  I'm sure, for example, that Wal-Mart has both people and systems spread out around the globe.  What they don't have is fiefdoms.  I've written a white paper on IT organization that speaks to how I'd like to see IT functions organized in Utah.  [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog] 11:35:50 PM

3. The Microcontent News Blogging Software Roundup - Part One of the Weblog Industry Report - Microcontent News, a Corante.com Microblog (19.0 points). The Microcontent News Blogging Software Roundup [( blogdex : recent )] 11:26:22 PM

Phil Wainewright: Web services missing a key ingredient. Phil Wainewright comments on the missing ingredient in web services -- how to get paid. ...virtually no meaningful work has been done to develop the technology to accurately measure usage, raise bills, collect payments and distribute settlements for multi-tiered component service delivery. I know certain vendors will e-mail me to dispute that assertion, but the fact remains that Google and Amazon have both introduced their APIs as limited-use free trials precisely because no-one has a clue how they will charge for them once they decide they need to. [Thanks: Doug Kaye] [Scott Loftesness] 11:25:07 PM

Stephen Roach: Still blowing bubbles?. Is the Fed making a mistake attempting to prolong the current housing cycle? In my opinion, the Fed squandered the opportunity to pop the equity bubble in late 1996 and early 1997. Back then, an "irrationally exuberant" equity bubble was suddenly rationalized by a Fed that embraced the New Economy with open arms. Today’s script seems hauntingly familiar. An overly extended housing cycle is now being legitimized as a sustainable source of economic expansion. From bubble to bubble -- there seems to be no stopping the follies and perils of asset- and debt-driven economic growth. [Scott Loftesness] 9:06:32 PM

Nelson Email Organizer this looks interesting... an outlook plugin that organizes mail automatically... it has a lot of features that look very interesting. hard to imagine it won't be crufty built on top of outlook. still. I saw one very positive review of it and it looks like its one several awards 6:32:25 PM

Amazon to expense options. The e-tail giant is one of the first tech companies to announce a switch, which it will make at the beginning of next year. [CNET News.com] 6:22:55 PM