Apple and Google Interoperability - Not!

If you are a user of Google products such as Gmail, calendar, contacts, etc and a heavy user of Apple hardware,  iPad, MacBook, etc, you know that these two worlds just don't integrate very well.  Basic poor interoperability which is very frustrating.  Apple pushes their solutions that compete with Google just like they push the ones that compete with Microsoft, e.g. Keynote.

Google release earlier this year a Capability, called google sync, that does address some of these interoperability issues with Apple software and account management.  Is does allow your contacts to stay in sync as well as your mail on their mobile devices, however it limits you to only one calendar.  Really!

If you are like me I have access to a number of calendars and need to see them on my iPad when I'm mobile.  Here is a good description from Google on setting up google sync on an iPad:  Google Sync Instructions for IOS.  For me I have enabled this from both my email and my contacts but have disabled it for my Calendar.  To get around the limit for only one calendar using this method I have gone through the typical Gmail account setup on the iPad and have only selected the calendar app not the email app.

All of this works without any issues but come on.  Google should be all about addressing this issue with Sync and Apple should be more responsive to working with other platforms.  Why can't they just get along? Oh right it's all about revenue.  I think that is a shortsighted quarterly view and they should know that if they work better together they can dominate in their respective areas instead of battling it out with these little annoyances.

So now let's move on to Apple's iCloud.  I was pretty excited about jumping into the iCloud world until I read the fine print.  This is from a google forum on how to set it up:

Full Blog The *Crucial Step* In order for your iCloud and Gmail contacts to remain synchronized with one another is to ensure that they are only ever edited on your iOS Device which is synchronized with iCloud and Gmail contacts. When you edit a contact on the Device, you will be warned that you are “editing 2 linked contacts”. This is how you know that your changes are being pushed to both accounts. If you edit the contact via iCloud or via Gmail directly, such as through their Web Contacts, it will only change that particular account’s “card”, not both. You will see changes on either iCloud or Gmail on your Device, but these changes will not have been, nor will they be synchronized across accounts. 

Only changes made directly to the contact on the iPhone or iPad will synchronize across accounts. You must also ensure that when you are editing the contact that you are editing the ‘linked contacts”. You will know you are looking at the linked contact when the contact says “Unified Info” at the top center of the screen. This is arrived at also by ensuring you are within the “All Contacts” group.

Oh come on! Really! This can't be!

I guess I'm staying away from iCloud and using my current setup for now.

Knowledge Age is Making Current Job Losses Permanent

I was reading an article from the Economist entitled: Difference Engine: Luddite legacy. The basic premise is that the rapid technology advances occurring after the industrial age began is having an increasing impact on the job market.  They aren't talking about robots taking automotive workers jobs, as discussed in a BI review, but technologies leveraged by the knowledge worker of today's economy that makes manual operations performed by the industrial worker obsolete.  The below sums up this concept:

This is the disturbing thought that, sluggish business cycles aside, America's current employment woes stem from a precipitous and permanent change caused by not too little technological progress, but too much. The evidence is irrefutable that computerised automation, networks and artificial intelligence (AI)—including machine-learning, language-translation, and speech- and pattern-recognition software—are beginning to render many jobs simply obsolete. 

This is unlike the job destruction and creation that has taken place continuously since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, as machines gradually replaced the muscle-power of human labourers and horses. Today, automation is having an impact not just on routine work, but on cognitive and even creative tasks as well. A tipping point seems to have been reached, at which AI-based automation threatens to supplant the brain-power of large swathes of middle-income employees. 

That makes a huge, disruptive difference. Not only is AI software much cheaper than mechanical automation to install and operate, there is a far greater incentive to adopt it—given the significantly higher cost of knowledge workers compared with their blue-collar brothers and sisters in the workshop, on the production line, at the check-out and in the field.

The key point which I agree with is that these job losses are permanent.  We have learned to live without these functions now and don't see a need to go back and incur greater labor costs when our systems are performing adequately.  The greatest opportunity for knowledge workers and their businesses exist with organizations that rely on the old "brick and mortar" industrial age approach in conducting their business. As they face ever increasing pressures to compete and become ever more effective in their efforts they will need to embrace knowledge age solutions.  The question is whether they wait to long to recognize that the industrial age is behind them.

Are Macs going mainstream Forrester?

I want to start out saying that I have fostered an equal platform / opportunity workplace for sometime now.   When you walk around today in our offices you see people with Macs and PCs; both laptops and workstations.  You will also see iPhones, Blackberry's, and Android mobile phones as well as iPads and Android tablets.  All of these connected via wired or wifi throughout all of the offices. This is accessible to employees using company issued devices or employees owned devices.


This is totally against my higher headquarters IT policy but I've felt this was one of the keys to our innovative culture. 


It was surprising to see that Forrester, via GIGAOM, just released a report stating the following:

"Forrester made some waves in the IT world Thursday morning when it released a report strongly urging large enterprise companies to let their employees use Macs at work, or as they phrased it “it’s time to repeal prohibition.”

I believe that mainstream corporate IT departments just had a stroke!  Their entire existence is standardization on basic platforms, e.g. Dell latitudes, running Windows 7, BTW just migrated from XP, and ensuring that nobody downloads any unapproved application.  Not to mention that a standard computer is the only one authorized to connect to the network.  It's great we have the freedom to lean into the 21st century in our office.


So with the release of this report by Forrester I wonder when I will see something in the works in the mainstream C suite embracing their recommendation.  I'll report back when I see that happening.  Don't hold your breath.

NetApp and Hadoop

I just came from a meeting over at NetApp.  I've been a fan of their products in the past and have deployed out numerous systems using them all over the world.  The key advantage in the past has always been their replication technology that ships with each system.

I ran across an article from GigaOM yesterday entitled "NetApp does network-attached Hadoop" http://goo.gl/HhjYe.  Notably in the article is a simple rational why NetApp is partnering with Coudera on this:

"The ultimate goal of the new NetApp product, Albanese said, is threefold: 1) to separate the compute and storage layers of Hadoop so each can scale independently; 2) to fit with next-generation data center models around efficiency and space savings; and 3) to improve reliability by being able to hot-swap failed drives and otherwise leverage NetApp’s storage expertise."

I would also add a forth reason, NetApp is tied to the Federal Government sales chain and the Feds are in Lobe with Hadoop at the moment.  This product will give the Feds a simplified way to purchase a Hadoop stack that is easy to understand.


We are pretty excited about this product so we will be taking a look at this when we get one and report back what we find.

Rapid Access, Data Governance, and Aggregation

Interesting concept from Read Write Web writer Chris Lamb on information liquidity:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/10/how-the-cloud-makes-financial.php
The section on Emerging Opportunities is spot on:
"One of the key drivers is flexible and rapid access through web services interfaces, and flexible commercial terms. One company, Xignite, has built its business around this new model.

Another key opportunity is in financial data management and data provenance. Regulators and counter-parties back in 2008 were unable to understand their financial positions because the definition of the data itself was ambiguous. Was this Lehman Special Investment Vehicle the same as that one? Nobody knew. Data management and data provenance can help sort this problem.

A third opportunity, aggregation tools, will also play a role in this new world. The ability to aggregate data from radically different domains (not just different trading venues), the ability to combine structured and unstructured data, the new dynamic portioning models will radically alter the landscape."


These same basic opportunities are found in many other sectors, not just financial. Some quick examples:

• In the Energy sector where I work with Oil and Gas companies on exploration, I see the need to aggregate data across many different sources, both structured and unstructured, to forecast the best locations for drilling opportunities.
• In the Personnel security sector I see the need to give rapid access to data, especially through mobile devices so that decisions can be made to avoid potential issues while traveling world wide
• In the Defense sector where I deal with different Services and missions the importance of data management and governance (provenance) is critical so that we are talking about the same data in the same way.

There are many other example across other sectors that I work but these opportunities are some of the fundamental building blocks need to be addressed.

Software Development Overruns

Michael Sampson writes "Software development projects have a long history of running over schedule and budget. Recent research by Evans Data estimates that 49% of such projects run over schedule; an IBM survey of CIOs puts the percentage at 62%. 


Research by IBM suggests that two of the root causes are poor communications among developers, especially when they're geographically distributed, and an unclear understanding of the business domain they're contributing toward." via the BrainYard.

Certainly these are key factors, but I would suggest the desire to get a project sold with a revenue stream coming in is also a key factor. Here the desire to give a client a feeling they are getting something at a price point they can live with that includes features they really need. 


This is a key reason these projects are late and overrun; unrealistic expectations on what it takes to get the project completed. This is done on the client side and the business development side, sometimes without involving the developer community at all in the decision space.

Source Via:  http://currents.michaelsampson.net/2011/10/sd.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+michaelsampson+(Michael+Sampson:+Currents)

IOS 5 Frustration

Upgraded my iPad to IOS 5. After upgrade non of my purchased apps would work. Immediately went to the web to see if someone was having the same issue. Web forums are open up with lots of people having a similar problem. UGH!

I read an article that one of Apples' key tennets is not to release a product until it is polished. They don't do public beta like some.

Not sure this is the case today. Antenna Gate to IOS 5 failure sums it up.

Now I have to find a way to fix my iPad before Monday when I need to use it for work. Great Sunday Beta testing Apple IOS 5.