I am just blown away by the latest iWork’08 and the very new Numbers application by Apple. Is Apple the only company in the world which packages innovation, style, class and value for money all in one? I’m also amazed to see the enhancements made to iLife’08. Shouldn’t all the companies be innovative and creative like Apple?

The other day I spent a good 30 minutes to understand the basics of latest Office’07. And I must admit that I was amazed with the styling but really what a mess! It took me a great deal to find simple thing such as “Save as” which is to my surprise was hidden in top left corner under the special Office logo! What the $%^#&? Anyhow, Microsoft might have the advantage of the general enterprise wide acceptance and similar user market, but with innovation like Office’07 they sure are making one hell of a life for the enterprise as well as the common user. Everything is not about style. It is about usability and applications own cleverness. By adding style Office’07 has added overhead with requirement of higher disk space, at least a gig of RAM and a faster processor, and without all this good luck with your Office’07 experience as your machine will be on Office’07 mercy. I strongly encourage Microsoft engineers to learn something from Apple engineers and Apple’s application design team.

At least, with Numbers Apple has accomplished what was the missing link in their office application suite – and with AppleWorks disappearance with OS 9 this surely is a delightful surprise to see a much effective and pleasant spreadsheet application.

Good job Apple and keep it going!!

I am just blown away by the latest iWork’08 and the very new Numbers application by Apple. Is Apple the only company in the world which packages innovation, style, class and value for money all in one? I’m also amazed to see the enhancements made to iLife’08. Shouldn’t all the companies be innovative and creative like Apple?

The other day I spent a good 30 minutes to understand the basics of latest Office’07. And I must admit that I was amazed with the styling but really what a mess! It took me a great deal to find simple thing such as “Save as” which is to my surprise was hidden in top left corner under the special Office logo! What the $%^#&? Anyhow, Microsoft might have the advantage of the general enterprise wide acceptance and similar user market, but with innovation like Office’07 they sure are making one hell of a life for the enterprise as well as the common user. Everything is not about style. It is about usability and applications own cleverness. By adding style Office’07 has added overhead with requirement of higher disk space, at least a gig of RAM and a faster processor, and without all this good luck with your Office’07 experience as your machine will be on Office’07 mercy. I strongly encourage Microsoft engineers to learn something from Apple engineers and Apple’s application design team.

At least, with Numbers Apple has accomplished what was the missing link in their office application suite – and with AppleWorks disappearance with OS 9 this surely is a delightful surprise to see a much effective and pleasant spreadsheet application.

Good job Apple and keep it going!!

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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I recently created Calgary Open Source Group (COSG). You can learn more about the group and its objectives at http://calgaryos.ning.com. The idea is to bring a flavor of Open Source into the Oil City. There is tons of proprietary stuff happening here, but I think its important to learn & experience for Calgary’s large technology community and companies about the open source software and revolution.

Feedbacks are welcome.

I recently created Calgary Open Source Group (COSG). You can learn more about the group and its objectives at http://calgaryos.ning.com. The idea is to bring a flavor of Open Source into the Oil City. There is tons of proprietary stuff happening here, but I think its important to learn & experience for Calgary’s large technology community and companies about the open source software and revolution.

Feedbacks are welcome.

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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I believe in open source. But, there have been too many events around open source in past couple of years that it is hard to believe that open source is not another commercialized entity. Companies posing themselves and based on open source technology in turn aren’t really open source in their products and offerings, and this brings an interesting and questionable point at times ‘what’s cooking behind those open source company doors?’. How many companies can we list that work towards the actual cause and benefit of open source, and also serve the underlying principals and foundation of open source? Most companies today are focused on how to make money off of the open source buzz, get funded and attract venture capitalists.

Another top of the line attractor of funds and capital these days is Web 2.0. Do we really understand Web 2.0? Why 2.0 and why not 1.5 or 2.5 or 3.0 or any arbitrary number for that matter. A term coined for the heck of it or did it have any meaning far and beyond the marketing and publicity of it? Is it making life easier for the users? What I have seen so far from Web 2.0 is – site slowness, complex page designs, heavy scripting and not really paying attention towards usability standards – so how the heck it makes things better over the standard pages or pre-Web 2.0 era?

To me both open source and Web 2.0 and overrated and overused terms today. It is time to move on, get something more useful. Something that makes the lives of the software development world easier, less stressful, more manageable, more focused, less expensive and user centric, and supports open technology standards (if they ever evolve completely).

Though, I named this blog “Open Source World” very aptly, but I think it’s going to stay this way, because open source though overused and overrated will eventually live out itself – and then I’ll think of some new name. BTW, I’m back with blogging.

I believe in open source. But, there have been too many events around open source in past couple of years that it is hard to believe that open source is not another commercialized entity. Companies posing themselves and based on open source technology in turn aren’t really open source in their products and offerings, and this brings an interesting and questionable point at times ‘what’s cooking behind those open source company doors?’. How many companies can we list that work towards the actual cause and benefit of open source, and also serve the underlying principals and foundation of open source? Most companies today are focused on how to make money off of the open source buzz, get funded and attract venture capitalists.

Another top of the line attractor of funds and capital these days is Web 2.0. Do we really understand Web 2.0? Why 2.0 and why not 1.5 or 2.5 or 3.0 or any arbitrary number for that matter. A term coined for the heck of it or did it have any meaning far and beyond the marketing and publicity of it? Is it making life easier for the users? What I have seen so far from Web 2.0 is – site slowness, complex page designs, heavy scripting and not really paying attention towards usability standards – so how the heck it makes things better over the standard pages or pre-Web 2.0 era?

To me both open source and Web 2.0 and overrated and overused terms today. It is time to move on, get something more useful. Something that makes the lives of the software development world easier, less stressful, more manageable, more focused, less expensive and user centric, and supports open technology standards (if they ever evolve completely).

Though, I named this blog “Open Source World” very aptly, but I think it’s going to stay this way, because open source though overused and overrated will eventually live out itself – and then I’ll think of some new name. BTW, I’m back with blogging.

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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I’ve been pre-occupied with lot of work lately. And understanding the logic of first things first, I’m putting my blogging desires for RapidBlog.com on hold for now as I am concentrating on completing my upcoming book. And besides this, I am also involved with my on-going work project that takes up another half of my time. Sometimes I wish, I had 48 hours in a day, but its a wishful thinking.

I might be blogging on bits and pieces at my book blog for now and will return here after I finish my book project. Ciao!

I’ve been pre-occupied with lot of work lately. And understanding the logic of first things first, I’m putting my blogging desires for RapidBlog.com on hold for now as I am concentrating on completing my upcoming book. And besides this, I am also involved with my on-going work project that takes up another half of my time. Sometimes I wish, I had 48 hours in a day, but its a wishful thinking.

I might be blogging on bits and pieces at my book blog for now and will return here after I finish my book project. Ciao!

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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I think some of the challenges which any enterprise company faces today are typical release cycles (program compliance), integration and regression testing (audit compliance), trace logs for transactions (SOX compliance), authentication integration (SOX/Federal/Compliance), data security (compliance), etc. A SaaS based application sounds nice and all from a ease-of-mind-perspective (and especially for small and medium size businesses) but has its own nightmares and bottlenecks. Its rightly pointed out in the write-up from Prof. James Morris about the development cycle for a communuty based/involved software development. But to an enterprise, especially large ones, its almost an impossible sell on SaaS.

Some more items to think about, at an enterprise level:
– Regression Cycles for various levels of testing with an enterprises typical legacy systems and already established internal applications
– Data Integration and cross-communication with an enterprises typical legacy systems and already established internal applications
– SSO/LDAP based integration with existing systems
– Data backups, storage and retrievals (including transfer of physical data from one data center to another)
– Fallback/Application Turnaround cycle (a typical SLA)
– Application customizations (not all fingers are of the same size!)
– Source Code ownership (what if SaaS comany is down under tomorrow!)
– Physical Data Security policies and practices
– BackUp and Restore policies and standards (a standard SLA)
– Legal Implications and rights for the users
– Risk mitigating factors (the unusual pretty picture or not)

The discussion is far beyond nascent at this stage now as more and more small and medium size businesses are making use of SaaS model. But, with risk factors aside, it doesn’t seem to fit the enterprise model at all, unless someone comes up with all the answers, which never is the case.

I think some of the challenges which any enterprise company faces today are typical release cycles (program compliance), integration and regression testing (audit compliance), trace logs for transactions (SOX compliance), authentication integration (SOX/Federal/Compliance), data security (compliance), etc. A SaaS based application sounds nice and all from a ease-of-mind-perspective (and especially for small and medium size businesses) but has its own nightmares and bottlenecks. Its rightly pointed out in the write-up from Prof. James Morris about the development cycle for a communuty based/involved software development. But to an enterprise, especially large ones, its almost an impossible sell on SaaS.

Some more items to think about, at an enterprise level:
– Regression Cycles for various levels of testing with an enterprises typical legacy systems and already established internal applications
– Data Integration and cross-communication with an enterprises typical legacy systems and already established internal applications
– SSO/LDAP based integration with existing systems
– Data backups, storage and retrievals (including transfer of physical data from one data center to another)
– Fallback/Application Turnaround cycle (a typical SLA)
– Application customizations (not all fingers are of the same size!)
– Source Code ownership (what if SaaS comany is down under tomorrow!)
– Physical Data Security policies and practices
– BackUp and Restore policies and standards (a standard SLA)
– Legal Implications and rights for the users
– Risk mitigating factors (the unusual pretty picture or not)

The discussion is far beyond nascent at this stage now as more and more small and medium size businesses are making use of SaaS model. But, with risk factors aside, it doesn’t seem to fit the enterprise model at all, unless someone comes up with all the answers, which never is the case.

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
Powered by Dextrus Prosoft, Inc.