A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

[MCWebsite.Staff]

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
** This thread discusses the Content article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
0

[Guest.Visitor]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
I have not listened to the webcast so I might be out of line here. However, the article appeared to say that, as always, there are not enough IT resources to do everything everybody wants and remove all backlogs permanently. I am assuming the webcast provides expert instructions on how to store 15 pounds in a 5 pound bag. Please feel free to slam me hard if I am wrong. Resource menagement requires appropriate project selection. This does not mean the loudest or most manipulative executive gets the most IT effort. It means that economic theory must be applied. The projects with the highest return get the resources. If a whiny accountant has to use excel instead of a custom report so that the company can earn megabucks with the IT resources who would have written that report, then too bad for the accountant. A basic rule of life is that there is neve enough of a valuable resource to go around. Find one company that has so much of anything valuable that is is putting it to pedeatrian uses and I will show you a company that is soon to be an unprofitable one. In my consulting days, I remember wotking at one company that had about 14 consultants to supplement eight or so massively incompetent AS/400 programmers. These programmers acted like spoiled royalty because the consultants were doing their work for them. This was during the Y2K frenzy. That company no longer exists. If there are not enough human resources to go around, then some kind of investment will result to allow the company to get by. It may involve more head count. It might involve an application generator or a packaged application. Prople find a way. Or they make room for someone else who can.

[R.Daugherty]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
Right off the bat, the phrase "maintenance programming" is a vendor driven red herring. With this 80-20% crap thrown around by writers in this screwed up industry, writing new functionality for a "legacy system" is maintenance programming and buying something new from the advertisers is just peachy, thank you. Except that adding new functionality is a lot more cost effective than buying a new system, which is why companies do it, and what we millions of programmers are doing. "Maintenance programming" it's not. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
"In my consulting days, I remember wotking at one company that had about 14 consultants to supplement eight or so massively incompetent AS/400 programmers. These programmers acted like spoiled royalty because the consultants were doing their work for them." I am an Indian by birth whose family got trapped in Pakistan. Over there I found natives of Sindh freeloading on immigrants from India as they thought he are the "Sons of the Soil" and it entitled them free ride. Soon I saw a generation of Sindhies getting educated and competing with each other. The freeloaders failed to learn how to work and did not survive. Then I briefly went for work to Saudi Arabia. I saw a similar situation with the Saudies. Illiterate Saudies became managers, did not know how to work, did not work, and did not care about learning to work. They had "Ajnabies" (foreigners) to work for. Soon the whole bunch of young Saudi University grads came in kicking their asses. In one of my recent company, I was amazed to see the pace of work. They were perm employees and I was a foreigner consultant so I did not give any damn. I knew better from my experience in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. My colleagues wrote two sets of programs to update two files. This "Project" took them one year and the programs took 8 hour to update 3,500 records. Then the management changed and they all lost their jobs they thought was theirs for the rest of their life.

[Guest.Visitor]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
I saw lots of people lose job due to this misconception. There were times when good programmers were simply not there. They are still in short supply but you can find them. However those days the shop manager deliberately let the code rot in a way that he only could maintain. The upper management would be too scared to fire him not knowing about the life without him. Probably because he will convince him that there are simply no competant programmers around. However things have changed, the word "dependancy" ticks off the upper management. If the code breaks too often or new functionality cant seem to be added, and the IT manager is a dependancy, they will get another manager. If they can't find another one, they will close the shop and move to Oracle, SAP etc. AS400 is dying out of legacy mentality of AS400 IT managers, not due to its architecture.

[R.Daugherty]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
You sure generate a lot of screwed up generalities from whatever "shop manager" you worked for. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
Actually it is "Shop Managers", a whole bunch of them. They range from one programmer shop managers to 350 programmer strong software house business managers. This long list includes 4 belonging to Fortune 500 companies. They all thought they were untouchable. They thought they were indispensible as they only knows what lies in the big ocean of legacy code out there. Well the corporate culture of Fortune 500 companies is "when you can't compete, take over". All of a sudden the shop manager will find himself as a small fish in a big pond where he is no longer indispensible. The word "dependencey" ticks off the CEO and the IT manager, the staff, and the AS400 all get the chop! RIP.

[J.Pluta]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
You know what word they hate more? COST. Get a bunch of corporate executives in a room and explain to them the Microsoft licensing scheme and see how much they like it. Then show them the comparative cost of an iSeries. But that won't happen because few people have the nerve to say that the Emperor (Bill Gates) has no clothes. The iSeries is losing because nobody in IT has any common sense, or maybe the moxie to use it in an argument. Everybody is so scared for their job that they'll do whatever management says, which is usually dictated by a consultant who couldn't care if your company lives or dies; after all, he still gets his paycheck. Joe

[David Abramowitz]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
Joe Pluta said: You know what word they hate more? COST. Only in the short term. If a company can save money over a year by spending more in a month, they won't do it. The immediate savings is something they can grasp, and tell everyone what a wonderful job they have done. If in the long haul that effort results in greater waste and cost, it doesn't matter. By that time they have found someone else to blame. Penny wise and pound foolish is not a new expression. You'd think that taking an economics course has never been a "C" level requirement. Dave

[R.Daugherty]

A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture

** This thread discusses the article: A Special Note from Tom Stockwell: Integrating Systems Requires a New Vision of the IT Architecture **
and they believe what they want to hear, or hear what they want to believe, that the cost will be lower. rd