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Tag Archive: google

half-assed Google products

[NB – As I have been writing and editing this post, Google already updated their Docs application suite to make it a bit more functional.  I haven’t done a lot of real-time editing with someone else so I don’t know if it’s any better, but the point is that this post might be irrelevant before I do eventually hit “publish.”

There is also the chance that other items about which I complain will be addressed quickly.  Finally, this is all based on the premise that Google has done little to show true strategic planning from their somewhat haphazard roll-out of products.  Not everyone agrees with this view, and I know that.]

I’ve mentioned before that I think Google lacks strategic planning, and that their tactical moves suggest disorganization and or potentially fatal decentralization in pursuit of freedom to innovate.  First-to-market is an important achievement, and FULLY ACKNOWLEDGE that perhaps that is the one and only driving force behind the release timing of many Google products.  But let’s put that item aside for now.

With the release of Google Docs for Android, which makes their own (half-assed) product on their own operating system somewhat more usable, I thought I would take a moment to examine the number of products that the company has launched that have potential that has been too long in realization or that have just floundered about, without a clear path to success. (more…)

May 2, 2011 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts, , 0 Read more >

outsourcing ourselves

here’s a thought:  why not outsource IT strategy?

I’m not talking about IT infrastructure or tools.  I don’t mean using Amazon EC2 for computing power or S3 for storage, much less Google Apps for Education.  I’m not talking about outsourcing specific services.

I mean outsourcing the actual decision-making process that drives our services and overall strategy.  I am talking about outsourcing IT and Academic Computing leadership.  In my case, I am talking about outsourcing myself.

What’s to stop a university from hiring a consulting firm to watch for technology trends, identify threats and opportunities (SWOT, anyone?), and make recommendations on what should be done.  The university then picks things that it can afford and that fit together (again, by recommendation from the consultants), and just does them using the appropriate resources.

Perhaps the IT department still has system administrators, and perhaps outsourcing leadership has nothing to do with outsourcing services.  Maybe the consultants recommend keeping e-mail in house due to an analysis of how the school’s General Counsel likes to interpret “exposure” (trying not to use FERPA as a shield here – it’s about exposure due to regulations such as FERPA.  Not FERPA unto itself).  So using consultants to identify trends and basically make strategic decisions doesn’t mean outsourcing everything.

But it could mean the elimination of the very type of job I have.  My next post, which I hope to have together in the next day or so, will follow through on how this might look to a university president.  Then we have to ask ourselves about how we can add enough value that no one ever actually does what I suggest in this post…

August 5, 2010 Higher Education IT, Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts, Work-related, , , , 0 Read more >

the Groupwise to Google experiment (part 3)

As I’ve described in two previous posts on my efforts to use Google rather than Groupwise for work e-mail and calendaring (1 & 2), as a connection point for my Android phone, I have run into a lot of interesting behaviors.  I’ve had challenges and successes.

Right now, I have Groupwise set up to straight forward all incoming e-mail to Google.  I set up a separate google account just for work, and use the web interface to work with my calendar, etc.  I keep things separate from my personal Google account simply by running the work stuff in one browser and my personal stuff in another one.  Different browser apps, different cookies, no conflicts.

Even this basic forwarding has had problems.  I’m still not 100% confident that when an e-mail comes into Groupwise, it is forwarded right away to Google.  Most of my uncertainty can be tied to a power outage about a week ago, which caused a whole lot of problems.  But there was at least one other instance when I just stopped getting e-mail for a few hours.  Then suddenly everything from a 1.5 hour period came at once.  As a result, I set up an IMAP connection to my Groupwise account so that I can double check there.  Kind of defeats the purpose.

As for Companionlink for synchronization, I am now dead set against it as a recommended solution because it is not an enterprise-level product.  I knew that going in, of course, but if someone at the school were to ask what smartphone to get, I’d say “Blackberry” in a second (we have an Enterprise Server on campus).  Also, it has some quirks.  For instance, if I set up a repeating event in Google, only the first one shows up in Groupwise (this happened with another Groupwise calendar-only synchronization software package, too, so it might be a GW thing).  Also, while invitations to meetings do show up in Google, I only get an option to add it to my calendar.  Not to actually respond to it.  I know I tested this before and I had “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” as options, which was nice (maybe allowed me to have it show up as declined but still visible on my calendar).  I can’t figure out why it’s not working.

So I do a all of my meeting proposals in GW.  I often accept meetings there, too.

In the end…it’s a tough call.  I miss a lot of the functionality of the blackberry and might even go back to it as new versions come out.  But right now the benefits of the Android phone (the HTC EVO 4G in this case, but it could be any one) outweigh things overall.  Many of my core apps exist on the Blackberry OS, but are not nearly as easy to use.  For instance, I can view an excel sheet on my large 4.3″ screen and actually see the important information without losing view of every other cell.  Things scale well when I zoom in.  I can’t do that on the smaller Blackberry screens.

Ah.  Technology…

I have instructed my staff to recommend Blackberry units without hesitation.  We have the Android units only so that we can play with alternative smartphones.  We already know how to set up a Blackberry account in about 10 minutes, but this is the first extensive testing with something else.

July 6, 2010 Work-related, , , 0 Read more >

see what has become of Bill Jobs. I mean Steve Gates. I mean…

Maybe a week ago, the market capitalization of Apple exceeded that of Microsoft for the first time in history, dislodging the latter from the lofty perch that it has held for years and years.

To me, the significance of this is more about a “popularity bubble” that I think Apple is experiencing.  There are a lot of intangibles for Apple, and one could argue that it is in fact more valuable than Microsoft in the long run.  I think the value of intellectual property might be pretty close between the two, in reality, but Apple has begun moving into some markets (um…with the iPad) that are still growth markets.

The question, to me, is whether this potential for growth is worth as much as investors think it is.  I’m really not sure.  First, let’s acknowledge that the market for computers is flat and margins are basically zero.  There is no growth in the personal computer market, no matter how many Macbooks and iMacs are sold.  They just don’t make enough money off of each one.  And, while Apple’s ability to adopt technology just before competitors (USB, WiFi, among others) is at times uncanny (and its marketing teams’ ability to hype the bejesus out of those advantages is just remarkable), it is probably also more expensive for them to be introducing those features before others.

So computers are a dead end.  Portable music players are beginning to plateau, I wager (I haven’t looked at the numbers in a while), and IMO the inclusion of a video camera on the 5th Generation iPod Nano is a sign that designers are beginning to grasp at straws.

Portable media via innovative mobile devices…that’s where the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad come in.  And it’s also why Steve Jobs is turning into Bill Gates.

(more…)

June 7, 2010 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts, , , , 0 Read more >

the GroupWise to Google Experiment (Part 1)

So the university at which I work uses Novell’s suite of applications for e-mail, calendaring, systems management, and storage.  For a while now, I have been contemplating how to stop using the GroupWise (e-mail and calendar) client, which is terrible on a Mac, and move to a different set of tools.  At the same time, I have been seeking a bit more freedom with my choice of phones…

GroupWise is not very integration friendly.  Yes, I can IMAP into the mail server, but that’s just mail.  If I want calendars, the ability to propose meetings, etc, then the best solution on campus is to use a blackberry connected via the Blackberry Enterprise Server IT has hooked into GroupWise.  This is a very nice integration – e-mails come very fast, calendar changes are pretty smooth (though sometimes I run into problems with recurring meetings) and the address book synchronization is great.

However, I won’t lie and say that I wouldn’t mind a phone that gave me a big touch screen rather than the traditional thumb-punching keyboard (and no, I am not interested in a Storm).  So I have been looking at Android smart phones (ATT coverage is very bad here, so I have not seriously considered the iPhone).

So, how do I get GroupWise e-mail, calendar, tasks, and contacts all into an Android phone?  Well, that’s why this is called the “GroupWise to Google Experiment.”

(more…)

April 5, 2010 Can't be Contained, Work-related, , , , 2 Read more >

Novell bets on Google Wave to replace its struggling GroupWise platform « Boy Genius Report

Novell bets on Google Wave to replace its struggling GroupWise platform « Boy Genius Report.

This is one of the most…amazing things I’ve read in a while.  I would normally say “exciting” because it is also that.  But it’s so exciting that it’s amazing.

I won’t lie – I’m not a big fan of Groupwise, and I say that while working at a university that uses it.  I know that Novell’s suite can be very powerful when implemented in the right environment, but I’m not sure that a university is the right one.  Just too many variables at play for something that needs to be fairly controlled yet is not pervasive (such as Outlook via Exchange – of which I’m not a huge fan, either).

But of all the things I thought Novell would do, to base their next e-mail generation on something like Google Wave is BOLD BOLD BOLD.  Wow.

March 22, 2010 Articles from the Web, Work-related, , , 0 Read more >

the sanctity of our electronic data…

NB and caveat:  I say “we” a lot in this post.  I do not mean the “we” that is my organization and/or the university at which I work.  I mean academia in general.

There has been a lot of debate – everywhere, but especially in academia – about outsourcing.  Lately, this has been e-mail.  The most notable and commonly used has been Google mail for Education. Their suite of products offers quite a few features but, by a mile, the major feature used is mail.  Integration with existing user accounts, maintaining domain name, etc – Google has done a good job (though I have mentioned before about how I don’t think they’ve done a good job developing their products beyond an initial stage).  Microsoft has entered the fray with their live@edu product, which is obviously aimed at schools.  It integrates well with Active Directory from what I’ve heard, so it’s ready for what many schools are already using for directory management.

However, that’s mostly been just e-mail.  And even then, there is a lot of debate about whether it’s “safe” to have one’s e-mail data off-campus.  There is this opinion that one’s e-mail is apparently too important to outsource.  Now, presuming that FERPA security and privacy rules have been met, it doesn’t make any sense to me.  First, if an accounting or law firm can outsource, then so should a school.

But, fundamentally, what makes our e-mail so special?  What makes our data in general so special?  What’s wrong with outsourcing?  At the very least, we are looking at a less expensive option, with sufficient security (again, presuming that a school’s counsel is comfortable with FERPA compliance), and a whole lot more engineers and system administrators running and maintaining the system.

I have been putting forth an effort to provide substantial network-based, enterprise-level storage for the faculty and staff at the law school.  Of course, I want to work within the university infrastructure first.  But we still run into the same issue – fewer system administrators, fewer people managing the servers.  We have some great staff at the university that are dedicated to their jobs, but you can’t compare the admin to system ratio and economies of scale (in both human and monetary capital) that a big outsourcing company can provide.

This proposal means putting all of one’s data on someone else’s storage solution, off-campus, and in the “cloud.”  In some cases our data might be across the country.

But what’s so wrong with that? Why is our data so important that we can’t accept this as a possibility?

February 27, 2010 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts, Work-related, , , , 0 Read more >

more thoughts on Google diaspora

A few days ago, I wrote about my thoughts on how Google is going nowhere in particular, and everywhere in general.  I was being generally being pretty fair about it, but the fact is that with all the power and personnel that Google has, why are there still so many items disconnected?  No integration, having to invite the same 5 people to each of 4 different Google Apps that are supposedly all part of the same “suite” of tools.

And, again, google seems to be missing the boat on a few things.  For instance, if I were looking at Google’s market opportunities, I would not only revisit the integration with TripAdvisor’s wealth of information, but let’s look at how TomTom has added Google features to their latest GPS units. If you get a TomTom unit, then you aren’t getting a whole lot.

Now, to their credit, you can go to Google Maps and then send the address to your TomTom Live unit.  That’s pretty cool, and it is something Google did.  So kudos for them.  But for the most part, it’s about pulling traffic data.  And…that’s far from disruptive.  It’s far from anything special.

But…why can’t I search google from my TomTom?  Get Google reviews from it, in exactly the way I suggest they do with TripAdvisor?  Why…is Google just presuming that everyone will come to them, rather than the other way?

sigh.

December 12, 2009 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts, , , , 0 Read more >

does anyone know where google is going next?

Honestly, does anyone have any clue as to what google is doing, or what its priorities are in terms of products and services?

There, I got to the point.  So now allow me to preface…I know that Google is working on a ton of things at once and that none of them are easy.  It’s not easy to make something like Google docs.  So I know it takes time, and that there are going to be lags that make it seem like Google is disjointed when in fact each product team is working diligently on their little areas or features or whatever.  But I still can’t figure out why they have their heads so far up their butts.

Also, please note that I don’t think of myself as either a Google hater or a fanboy.  Google has some good stuff, and they are pretty darn creative.  But they also have their flaws.  My issue, here and now, is that they clearly have resources of amount X, and that they have shown at least a few times when they have not spread that amount effectively.  I’ll give examples of both great and terrible allocation of resources.

(more…)

December 7, 2009 Can't be Contained, , 1 Read more >

google apps…and what the heck is wave?

So far, after just 1 day at Educause (and pre-conference day, actually), there has been quite a bit of talk about campuses that have gone with Google Apps for Education, and about their latest product, Google Wave.

The talks about Google Apps have gone in 2 parts, it seems.

1 – migration to e-mail was not terrible, technically.  Programmatically, it takes some effort to get buy-in, but ultimately if it makes sense, then it’ll work and it’ll happen and it’s not a big deal.

2 – students are in fact using the other apps, especially Google Docs.  They even write collaboratively.  However, they still save out to Word and send that to faculty (electronically – they could just send the URL to the Google Doc).

I find this second point very interesting.  To me, outsourcing email to Google isn’t a big deal (well, privacy, etc is a big deal, but in a less FERPA-y kind of way, it’s straightforward).  But I seriously wonder whether students are getting the extra advantage of all the collaboration tools.  Signs point towards yes, which is great

What stinks, though, is that it’s so hard to collaborate on Google Apps.  Yes, it’s easy to share a doc and write together.  Recently, however, I wanted to set up some items for my final MBA class.  In order to meet my needs, I did:

  1. Create a Google Group.  Invite people to that
  2. Create a Google Calendar.  Invite same people to that
  3. Create a folder in Google Docs.  Invite…same people to that.

Thank goodness I can at least share folders rather than having to have a document first.  But why can’t Google let us create a site that would have all of these things, available to a set list of people?  An actual collaboration space?  Kind of ridiculous, IMO.

Then there is Google Wave.  I am pretty sure I can figure out how to use it, especially for projects.  But I honestly don’t know how I’d explain it to faculty, or develop a good use case for pedagogy.  Someone suggested that it’s

  1. a new communication paradigm
  2. wiki meets gmail meets IM

So, first, I’m not 100% sure it’s a new paradigm.  I guess definitely a new construct.  Not sure about a new paradigm.

I’m also not sure about the wiki part.  We aren’t creating a cohesive page, after all, with a wave.  More like a stream of messages.

Which does mean that gmail meets IM makes some sense.  But how do I explain what that means to faculty and students?  Especially without Google Docs integration?

November 4, 2009 Conferences, Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts, , , , 0 Read more >