We’re no where near having video on demand! I’ve recently had two experiences that were really disappointing. The first experience was when I was in search of a movie. I had a friend coming over that wanted to watch Top Gun. I didn’t have it, but I figured how hard could it be to get. I have cable broadband, BitTorrent, Comcast OnDemand and there are a dozen other services on the web. So, here’s what I did. I needed the movie fast, so I went first to Comcast OnDemand thinking that would be the quickest download of the movie as the last time I used it the movie loaded almost instantaneously. However, when I went to the movie list, there was no Top Gun. In fact, there was a disappointing list in total. Next up, google… I did a quick search for “video on demand” to pull up some of the web options such as Movielink, Vongo, etc. I was on Mac Mini though, which is connected to a HD projection LCD (perfect for movies). None of these services either a.) worked with my Mac, b.) were easy to figure out what to do or c.) allowed me to just get one movie quickly and on demand. I think this is the key to these services being truly successful. I should be able to get a movie going without too much hassle. Let me start it with nothing more than entering my credit card. Don’t make me sign-up for a full account or require me to install a ton of new software. In the end, I went to the tried and true, BitTorrent. It’s slow as molasses, but I haven’t yet not found what I was looking for.
My second video on demand experience that was disappointing was purely due to a poor UI. A few friends of mine have told me that I have to watch this new HPO Series. Since I have Comcast HBO, I also have access to most of the HPO content on demand. This is a pretty good experience, but someone needs to sit on a couch and use it before it’s rolled out to the public. As I was watching the show, I had a phone call that I had to take. I put the show on pause and took the call. During the call, the pause kicked off and it went back to the main menu. At first I was really frustrated expecting that I would now have to fast forward through the show to get back to where I was. Luckily, it has saved where I was, but required me to clumsily go back through the menu to get back to the show (btw, have you noticed there’s no “back” button on these remotes!). The other issue I have with this experience is it leaves me at a screen that shows my “saved programs”. First of all I didn’t “save” them and don’t care to as I’ve already watched them. Secondly, make it easier for me to watch the next episode!
It’s slowly coming together though. We have the bandwidth, we have the technology and we have the content. The keys to getting it all to work are going to be a.) making it easy to access and b.) priced to sell.
Software Testing Resource
A software testing resource for IT Managers and Software Engineers.
Software testing has been my area of focus as an IT consultant. I have managed large software testing efforts and developed and implemented software testing strategies for large companies. Recently I have focused on outsourcing software test organizations leveraging resources globally. Having built a software testing center of excellence in India for a large software company, I have learned to adapt many software development and testing processes to meet the specific needs of my clients. This software testing related website will focus on helping IT managers understand how to improve their existing software testing processes and organization as well as what to consider when outsourcing software testing. I welcome comments on any of my entries and I will certainly adapt knowledge capital shared.
Selecting an Offshore Country for IT Services
As an outsourcing consultant working for Accenture, I am regularly presenting on “Why Accenture?”. However, today I was challenged with a new question from a client. Why China? As the IT outsourcing services industry continues to expand in both it’s offerings and locations, many companies are confused as to what locations they should leverage. It is important to keep in mind that location choice should be based on the project requirements. Everyone wants to minimize costs associated with IT. However, there are many more intangible costs outside of the standard hourly labor rates that can dramatically impact your projects success. For example, if you have a small project (~ 5-15 resources) that requires more significant real-time interaction over the course of a year, you will likely want to leverage an onshore or nearshore location. If you attempt to use an offshore location with these project requirements, you will likely find that the increased attrition (due to requirements of people to work grave yard shift) and telecommunications costs could outweigh the labor arbitrage. As the demand continues to rise exponentially, new markets become attractive for mitigating rising costs in the primary locations such as India. Having done some external research on the location topic, I’ve included my findings below for reference. Feel free to contact me directly if you have additional questions.
References:
- CIO Magazine | Offshore Map
- Ziff Davis CIO Insight | Top Spots For Global Outsourcing
- neoIT | Mapping Offshore markets update 2005
- Global Equations | Global Outsourcing Report 2005
- A.T. Kearney | 2004 Offshore Location Attractiveness Index
- Computerworld magazine | Knowledge Center – Outsourcing Special Report
- Sourcing Mag | Location Selection
- European Information Technology eXchange | Service buyers: Selecting the offshore location
- IAOP | Mapping Offshore Markets Update
- Carnegie Mellon University & Accenture | eSourcing Capability Model (eSCM)
- Accenture | Maximizing the Value of a Global Workforce
How much of IT should be outsourced?
As outsourcing has exploded in the last couple of years both in practice and mind share, many CIO’s have more questions than answers. For example:
- What percentage of my IT organization should be outsourced?
- How can I cut costs out of my organization while still delivery new capabilities to the business?
- How can I consolidate the number of vendors I use today, and how many vendors should I work with?
As an outsourcing consultant, I grapple with this question every day. And every day, with each different client or application space, I come to different conclusions. It seems there is a lot of variability to the answer depending on a particular IT organizations process maturity, industry, country, technology platforms and availability of local talent. Yet, today as I was catching up on my reading of CIO magazine, which was discussing the next generation of IT, I challenged myself to come up with a “simple” answer. Below is my first attempt at designing the IT organization of the future, if I were the CIO. I’d enjoy getting any feedback you might have on this idea.
CIO
Responsible for overall IT strategy and operations. This role and supporting team would provide overall leadership and direction.
Architects & Program Management
Managing the needs of the business and the resource bandwidth would primarily be executed by the outsourcing partner that would bring deep program and project management experience. Continuous evaluation of the IT operations technology platforms and future design would then fall primarily on employee architects that would feel ownership of their companies direction and capabilities. The outsourcing partner would then supplement with technology specific architects as needed.
Business & Systems Analysts
Driving the next generation of IT will require more business focused IT workers identifying and designing new ways to do business and generate top-line growth. The outsourcing vendor would provide support in methodology and domain or application specific experts that could rotate in and out to bring industry best practices from other clients.
Developers, Testers and Support Operations
Majority of workforce can be managed more effectively and less costly by a vendor with centralized development centers. Entry level employees would work with the vendor initially to build foundational skills for future roles.
PowerPoint Search
The power of desktop search programs such as those by Google, Apple and Microsoft are impressive. I am a very organized person with a folder structure that usually allows me to find what I am looking for quickly. Yet, I have found myself gradually moving away from the depth of my folder organization structure to using the desktop search to pull up the same files. However, the major gap is non-text content such as images and video files that remain challenging to find over time. Yes, you can spend your life adding enough meta data to your image and video files to allow for better searching later, but I think it would be easier if an application allowed me to quickly scan available images or videos. One specific application I have for this tool is to be able to scan all the PowerPoint slides I have on my machine. Often, when I am putting together a PowerPoint presentation, I have an old design in mind. It could be an old deck that had a similar message or maybe just one slide that had graphics or a layout similar to what I intend to make. I’d like to see this capability today as I need to find the slide that has a pyramid representing different layers of an organization. 🙂
Fun Things To Do “.com”
I am trying to come up with some ideas for some fun things to do outside of my normal itineraries. Similar to my idea about half priced events, it would be great if one could go online and get new ideas for something fun to do. I’ve looked at many of the events listing type sites, but they only show you what is going on with respect to a particular date and type of event. But, what if I just want something new to do that I don’t know about? It could be a place I’ve never been or something as simple as playing tourist and renting one of those three-wheeler scooters (something I’ve been meaning to do). Seems like this should exist (and I’m sure it does somewhere). My first thought was funthingstodo.com. Unfortunately, the owner hasn’t launched the site yet. If I owned it, I would set it up to be a craigslist type moderated list engine that provided a categorical list of fun events by location, type, cost, etc. Then people would have the ability to list their ideas (social moderation would keep it clean, fun and organized).
Product Pricing Strategy
With the advent of the iPod and iTunes, everyone is trying to get into the game of providing instant access to video and music. The one point I want to make is that these companies need to rethink their pricing. I was in a hotel a few weeks ago and was shocked at how much it cost to play a movie on demand. I thought, “Do they realize I have a Netflix DVD in my bag and a couple downloaded movies on my laptop?” Pricing strategy needs to be focused on more. Quantity in this game is the goal.
Let’s take the above example and illustrate my point. If the hotel charges $6 to download a movie, and we assume that 10% of guests take advantage of the service, and you have 1,000 guests, that’s $600 in revenue. Now, change the price to $1 per movie, which would drive more usage. Assume that 80% of guests play a movie on demand (many would start movies that they didn’t even intend to finish at $1). At this rate, you make $800 a 33% increase in revenue (break-even is 60% adoption of service per guest). As you can see, changing the price can have a dramatic effect. Now, this is all basic pricing strategy taught in every business school, but why am I seeing these overly priced services. I mean come on, I realize that Apple has sold over a billion songs via iTunes, but I wonder how many songs would have been purchased (rather then pirated) if the cost was $.25?
Metro Wi-Fi and Mobile Billing
As I walked to the grocery store today, I thought again about the infamous meter maid. It dawned on me that as these metropolitan wi-fi networks are deployed, the city could leverage this network to provide many new services that could either increase revenue for the city or lower costs. One thought is to change the meters to take a credit card (or some form of future electronic payment). The meter could validate the card through the metro wi-fi network and run off a solar panel and battery. They already have an electronic parking meter for the cellular networks, but I’m guessing that a wi-fi version would be cheaper.
Also, imagine all the outdoor vendors that could process credit cards through mobile devices. Making the Internet ubiquitous should prove interesting.
Update 1-11-2007: A few days ago I was in Hong Kong and saw a parking meter that used their ubiquitous Octopus card. This RFID smart card made it very easy to pay for parking, something every city in the world should adopt.
An additional example of use for the Octopus card:
Reading Sources
The following is a list of resources I regularly track to gain insight about the latest and greatest.
- Business 2.0 magazine
- CIO magazine
- Council on Foreign Relations
- The Economist
- Foreign Policy
- Forrester
- Gartner
- Global Services
- National Public Radio
- Services Outsourcing World magazine
- Wall Street Journal
- Wired magazine
- Wireless Week
Newsletters:
Revolution of the Digital Home Entertainment System
After seeing Microsoft’s offering for the living room at the Consumer Electronics Show this year in Las Vegas, I was actually sad when Macworld (held the following week) did not announce a similar “living room experience”. It was anticipated that they would announce a new Mac Mini, but the conference came and went.
Yesterday, on the verge of Apple’s 30th birthday, they finally released the new Mac Mini at a private event. In typical Apple style, it was a secretive, invite only affair that everyone wanted to be at. At it’s core, the future was displayed in the upgrade to the Mac Mini product line, which is less then a year old. The new Mac Mini, not only leverages the new, faster chip set from Intel, but provides a truly digital, home entertainment system at a price point that seems unimaginable (when compared to the stereo components and computer it can replace). The new Mac Mini, smaller than a box of Kleenex, connects to your TV and stereo system allowing you to surf the web, edit home movies, watch DVDs, and email from your couch.
I have the first version, which didn’t include the remote control capabilities or what is known as “optical outputs” for the latest technology in sound output. It’s been the most pleasant computing experience of my life. It simply works. It maintains itself and provides more things for me to play with than I have time for.
For those of you that don’t yet have a computer hooked up to your TV, this is the one you want! While most of my blog entries are focused on my own ideas, I had to write about this event. We are finally to the point where computers are leaving the office desktop and showing up in our living rooms, pockets and cars. They will connect us to everyone and everything in a time frame that will seem faster then the advent of the Internet. I imagine that within a couple of years, most of my dreams of an integrated multi-media lifestyle will be available. Broadband in the homes, Wi-Fi in every coffee shop and soon to be city, third generation cellular networks, all provide the communications platform for these new devices to share all of our personal media with us anywhere we are. Watching your TiVo’d episode of your favorite show will be just as easy on the bus as it is in the home.
