Gregg Eldred

Bob Cringley has written a series of five articles concerning IBM. The last time he did that, in 2007, he revealed that IBM was ready to offshore and outsource thousands of IBM jobs, impacting employees and customers alike. He was rigth. Now, he returns, predicting, well, here it is in his own words (emphasis, Bob Cringely).

The direct impetus for this column is IBM’s internal plan to grow earnings-per-share (EPS) to $20 by 2015. The primary method for accomplishing this feat, according to the plan, will be by reducing US employee head count by 78 percent in that time frame.

Reducing employees by more than three quarters in three years is a bold and difficult task. What will it leave behind?  Who, under this plan, will still be a US IBM employee in 2015? Top management will remain, the sales organization will endure, as will employees working on US government contracts that require workers to be US citizens. Everyone else will be gone. Everyone.

Let's continue on to his second article.

Global Services is a mature business that has been around for about 20 years.  In IBM’s 2015 business plan big income is expected from newer businesses like Business Analytics, Cloud and Smarter Computing, and Smarter Planet.  Can these businesses be grown in three to five years to the multi-billion dollar level of gross profit coming from Global Services?  Most of these businesses are tiny.  A few of them are not even well conceived as businesses.  It takes special skills and commitment to grow a business from nothing to the $1 billion range.  Does IBM have what it takes?

Probably not.

Do you remember eBusiness?  Do you remember On-Demand?  These are recent examples of businesses IBM planned to grow to billions in sales, businesses that no longer exist today.  Some claim that Blue Gene is shortly to be shuttered, too.

Actually, I see "eBusiness" nearly every day. It appears on my Linux server after I start WebSphere, ". . . ready for e-business . . . " Thanks, IBM, for that little advertisement.

Here’s a simple thought experiment. When it comes to these new software and Internet services, IBM’s competition comes from a variety of companies including Amazon, Apple, Dell, Google, Hewlett Packard, Oracle and others. Does IBM have an inherent advantage at this point against any of those companies? No. Is IBM in any way superior to all of them and thence in a position to claim dominance? No.

Ouch.

If IBM is planning a 78 percent staff reduction, then that will of necessity involve all USA operations, not just Global Services.  Hardware, systems, software, storage, consulting, etc. will all see serious staff cuts.  This means IBM could be moving a lot of its manufacturing and product support offshore.  Raleigh, Lexington, Rochester, and several other IBM communities are about to lose a lot of jobs.

That does not bode well for anyone, especially those organizations that pay IBM a lot of money for support, expecting a certain level of competence and knowledge from the support technicians.

IBM’s goal appears to be to have as few employees in the US as possible, maximizing profit.  But doing so clearly hurts customer satisfaction. Major IBM customers such as Amgen, The State of Texas, and most recently the Walt Disney Company have cut ties with IBM in favor of other providers. Many other customers are scaling back the services they’re buying from IBM as the perceived value continues to drop. Customers are starting to realize that they can directly hire offshore companies such as TCS, Wipro, HCL and Satayam and book the savings directly instead of paying IBM top dollar for support and then seeing that support fulfilled from BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries. When IBM first started its big push to offshore technical work, the account teams were asked to make a list of reasons why customers’ work couldn’t be offshored, but were not allowed to use skills as a reason. That makes no sense in a rational organization but it makes perfect sense to IBM.

Link: Bob Cringely: Watch Out IBM!

Link: Bob Cringely: Not Your Father's IBM

Link: Something's Rottern In IBM Dubuque

Link: Bob Cringely: Magical Thinking at IBM

Link: Bob Cringely: How to Fix IBM in a Week


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Two reasons why Lotusphere is a marathon and not a sprint. Especially when you find yourself in the company of two blokes that are highly entertaining. You may even find that they are more entertaining than Boardwalk street performers. As a public service, here is my Pro Tip: These tickets are not welcome at ESPN Club.




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Sadly, one of the few Open Mic sessions I've missed happened to be the one with the most awesome content.

Back on 13 March, IBM hosted an Open Mic Webcast titled "Install Utilitles for Lotus Notes." It was my mistake not to read the abstract, as I was thinking "InstallShield Tuner" for some reason. This open mic, which you may reference here, did not cover InstallShield Tuner. No, it covered two amazing tools that you NEED to put in your toolbox.

Let me explain.

IBM introduced NICE, the Lotus Notes Install Cleanup Executable tool. Cleaning up after a failed install, failed uninstall, or a failed upgrade is a major pain in the a$$. Now, with NICE, it is a fast and easy process. The executable is available in the Utility subdirectory of the Notes install kit. If you prefer, you may also download it here. What does it do? From the TechNote, NICE "...removes various files and settings, including registry setting values, program files, and Notes user data files. When would you use NICE? Again, from the TechNote, you would run NICE:

• Clean install -- Remove the existing Notes installation, and clean the registry, to prepare for a clean install.
• Failed install -- Detect the install version from the registry and clean up registry settings and files on the system to prepare for a clean install of the same release.
• Failed upgrade -- Detect the install version from the registry and clean up registry settings and files on the system to prepare for a clean install or the upgrade release.
• Failed uninstall -- Detect the version from the registry and clean up registry settings and files on the system to prepare for a clean install.

The next part of the TechNote is pretty cool.

For all situations, the following occurs:

• If a Notes version is not detected in the registry but files exist in the default location , you are prompted to remove those files from disk. For example, if there is no entry for Notes in the Add/Remove Programs dialog, NICE detects whether there is a key in registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Lotus\Notes, gets the PROGDIR and DATADIR information from the registry, and does the deletion. If there is no key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Lotus\Notes, NICE does nothing.
• If there is no Add/Remove Programs entry for Notes, but there are registry keys in either HKCU\Software\Lotus\Notes\Installer or HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes, you can remove those registry settings. For example, if there is no Add/Remove Programs entry for Notes, NICE gets the PROGDIR and DATADIR information from HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes and continues to remove program files, remove shortcuts, and clean the registry.

They also talked about UpdateSiteMgr.exe, which you can investigate for yourself, here.

The coolest tool, IMHO, is Multi-User Migration Assistant (MUMA). This tool will quickly (when I say "quickly," it only took 2 minutes on a pretty slow VM) migrate a single user Notes install to a multi-user Notes install. Think about that for a minute. It converts a single user Notes install to a multi-user Notes install. No more waiting 40 minutes to uninstall and reinstall a Notes client. It's all done for you in a matter of minutes. Maybe seconds, depending on the workstaion. If I am not clear as to this tool's ability, here's the abstract version:

You can use the supplied single user to multi user tool to migrate a Notes single user install to a Notes multi-user install for an existing Notes release prior to upgrading to a new release. This enables you to convert an existing Notes single user install to a multi-user install for both Notes basic and Notes standard configuration deployments. It also enables you to convert a simulated multi-user install (where the user's data directory is on a mapped drive) to a true multi-user install. This tool is available for Lotus Notes 6.5.x, 7.x, and 8.x installations on supported Windows platforms only.

MUMA, like NICE, can be found in the Utility folder of the Notes install kit. This is a brilliant piece of work and should be added to your toolbox. Especially as it is fully supported by IBM (got a problem? Open a PMR!) and while IBM prefers that you use Notes 8.5.3, it is supported from release 6.5.x to current.

Save time and, more importantly, your sanity. Familiarize yourself with these two tools.

Oh, in the same webcast, IBM also reviewed UpdateSiteMgr.exe, which adds or removes features from the Notes 8.5.3 install package. Yes, that is cool, too, however my real excitement is reserved for MUMA and NICE.

Link: Open Mic Webcast: Install Utilities for Lotus Notes - 13 March 2012 (presentation)

Link: Using the Lotus Notes Install Cleanup Executable (NICE) tool

Link: Using the Lotus Notes single user to multi-user migration assistant (MUMA) tool


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Interesting alternative view of the geo-location services we civilians mostly take for granted, from checking in on foursquare to adding tags to our uploaded pictures.

A deployed service member's situational awareness includes the world of social media. If a Soldier uploads a photo taken on his or her smartphone to Facebook, they could broadcast the exact location of their unit, said Steve Warren, deputy G2 for the Maneuver Center of Excellence, or MCoE.

"Today, in pretty much every single smartphone, there is built-in GPS," Warren said. "For every picture you take with that phone, it will automatically embed the latitude and longitude within the photograph."

Warren cited a real-world example from 2007. When a new fleet of helicopters arrived with an aviation unit at a base in Iraq, some Soldiers took pictures on the flightline, he said. From the photos that were uploaded to the Internet, the enemy was able to determine the exact location of the helicopters inside the compound and conduct a mortar attack, destroying four of the AH-64 Apaches.

Sure, those in the armed forces need to be made aware of the potential issues with geo-location features. But what about civilians?

"Some of those individuals have hundreds of 'friends' they may never have actually met in person, he explained. "By looking at someone's map tab on Facebook, you can see everywhere they've tagged a location. You can see the restaurants they frequent, the gym they go to everyday, even the street they live on if they're tagging photos of their home. Honestly, it's pretty scary how much an acquaintance that becomes a Facebook 'friend' can find out about your routines and habits if you're always tagging location to your posts."

Certainly, the risks are different for civilians than they are for members of the military, for one thing, rarely do we experience rocket attacks. However, there is a pretty good point to the article: "Who really needs to know this location information?"

Thanks, Matt.

Link: Army.mil: Geotagging poses security risks


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Legendary accounts of breakthroughs in technology tend to focus on operating systems, displays and new devices.

But one of the most significant yet under-reported trends is for technology companies to try to 'leapfrog' each other with 'over-the-top' technologies. It is this trend that often defines the battle for supremacy in the technology industry.

... [IBM] spent over $4bn buying software firm Lotus because it wanted a small but crucial part of the business: Lotus Notes, with a revenue stream then of only $100-200m.

What was IBM's reasoning? Lotus Notes would become the main user interface, sitting on top of Microsoft's Windows operating system, and turning Windows into a commodity, just as Microsoft had done to IBM before. It did not quite work out as planned, but for the potential of going over the top IBM was prepared to pay billions. It illustrated dramatically how valuable over-the-top technology can become.

More >


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There is now an updated TechNote concerning Lotus Traveler and the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Question
Does IBM Lotus Notes Traveler support the BlackBerry PlayBook?

Answer
At this time, IBM does not support the use of Lotus Notes Traveler on a BlackBerry PlayBook. PlayBook support is offered by RIM:
1) For Administrators, RIM has posted details about its support for the configuration in the BlackBerry Device Service Guide.
2) For end users, please reference the PlayBook Users Guide.

IBM and RIM continue to collaborate closely to enhance the PlayBook experience for IBM and RIM mutual customers.

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Got Traveler? Mark your calendar for this webcast on 24 April.

Abstract
IBM will host an Open Mic webcast with Lotus Development and Support Engineers on 24 April 2012. The topic will be "What's the Latest with Notes Traveler? ."

Content
Date: 24 April 2012
Time: 11:00 AM EDT (15:00 UTC, or GMT -4), for 60 minutes

To ask a question in advance, add a response document to this forum post.

More information, including the ICS which you can use to add the webcast to your calendar, call-in phone numbers, and the web conference ID, may be found here.


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His wife, June, is there, watching President Truman present him with the Medal of Honor. He earned the medal fighting on Iwo Jima, one of several islands he led Marines into battle against the Japanese. The presentation concludes, he heads to the washroom. There, he unholsters his sidearm,  wonders why he is here, in Washington receiving the Medal of Honor, when the real hero's are still on the beaches and in the jungles of the Pacific, dead. He puts the gun to his temple. "Earl," comes the voice of June, "we have to leave, the car is here." He decocks the automatic, holsters it, adjusts his tunic, and walks out.

Walks out, towards what? What is an honored Marine hero, which is what Earl Swagger has become, to do? He is, after all, the son of much feared, respected, and abusive lawman. He is a warrior, comfortable around weapons, used to commanding men on the battlefield. What civilian job could use his particular talents? He considers law enforcement, like the Arkansas State Troopers, however there are no immediate openings. Plus, he has his wife and unborn child to consider. What happens is that he is hired to train a hand picked group of young, single policemen from around the country to rid Hot Springs, Arkansas of gambling, prostitution, and drugs. Hot Springs is run by Owney Maddux, a man who fancies himself as a well bred Englishman but is, in reality, the product of the hard streets of New York. In addition to bringing law and order to Hot Springs, Earl also must contend with the changing priorities of a very political agenda, the stress of a pregnant wife, problems within the team, and an adversary that will protect his investments at any cost.

Hot Springs, by Stephen Hunter, is a prequel to his very popular, and successful, Bob Lee Swagger novels. This is the novel that introduces the reader to Earl Swagger, Bob Lee's father. Hunter brings quite a bit to this novel, while not losing a thing in the pace or plot. He is able to weave racism, issues with returning war veterans, and  issues, and duty. No less important, Hot Springs deals with redemption. Hunter keeps the story moving, suspenseful, and with several wonderful twists. This novel is, quite simply, one of the best in Hunter's impressive catalog. If you have read one, most, or all, of his Bob Lee Swagger novels, you must read this, it provides the foundation to the Bob Lee character while introducing his father, an excellent character who is more than up to the task that has been presented. And it answers some questions about Bob Lee's past, his grandfather, and, more importantly, his father. Hot Springs is one of the best books Stephen Hunter has written.

Disclosure:
Obtained from: Bookstore
Payment: Purchased

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