Erik on Software

New Book Review: "Patent, Copyright & Trademark"

New book review for Patent, Copyright & Trademark: An Intellectual Property Desk Reference (11th Edition), by Attorney Richard Stim, NOLO, 2010, reposted here:

Good introduction to intellectual property law, which consists of four separate and overlapping legal disciplines: (1) patent law, (2) copyright law, (3) trademark law, and (4) trade secret law. Following an introduction that provides a high-level overview of intellectual property law, the remainder of the text is broken down into each of these disciplines, with the bulk dedicated to patent law and copyright law. Each of these sections provides an overview of the discipline covered, along with definitions associated with the corresponding discipline and explanations of forms that need to be filed, together with sample completed examples, followed by the actual legal statutes.

While the bulk of what Stim provides here is dedicated to patent law and copyright law, definitions are what carry this text across all of the four disciplines. That definitions comprise a majority of this text is important, because depending on the needs of the reader this may or may not be an effective format. This book is one of a number of self-help legal resources that Nolo provides, and so it is important to realize that this 600-page effort should probably be seen as just a good place to start one's journey in intellectual property. At the same time, it is also likely that the reader will not need to read this book cover-to-cover, because Nolo publishes separate texts dedicated to each of the four disciplines covered here.

Nolo has been updating this text regularly since the mid-1990s, so the reader can be assured that the content that is provided is up-to-date at time of publication. In each of the overview sections, Stim provides several pages under the header "What's new in patent law since the last edition?" that explain the major events in each respective discipline since the last edition of the book was published. In my opinion, this information mainly serves as a reminder that the law continues to evolve, and is probably best used by the reader as a starting point for further investigation, since the legal decisions provided are highly summarized. It is also worth pointing out that the author provides references to abundant web site resources that provide additional information.

The overviews and definitions are written clearly for those new to these legal disciplines. Compared to the last text I read on related subject matter, "Inventing Software: The Rise of 'Computer-Related' Patents" by Kenneth Nichols (see my review), I also find the material that this book provides to be very well organized. As a consultant in the software industry, the definitions that Stim provides for such terms as "algorithms", "software patents", "reverse engineering and trade secrets", and "software and trade secrets" are especially appreciated, and as a blog writer I also appreciated some of the tips that the author provides on copyrighted material. Recommended to anyone looking for an introductory text on intellectual property law.

Past Book Review (July 6, 2007): "Inventing Software"

 Past book review (i.e. posted prior to starting this blog) for Inventing Software: The Rise of "Computer-Related" Patents, by Kenneth Nichols, Quorum Books, 1998, reposted here:

From the first lines of the preface of this work by Kenneth Nichols, it is apparent that what was initially planned to be of more concise scope grew into a discussion of all things associated with software patents, and therein lies the rub. It is interesting that the author notes in just the second sentence that he "came to the conclusion that the particulars of the debate [within the programming community over the desirability and ultimate effect of software patents]...are not that interesting or enlightening". Really? I find it odd that an individual with a J.D. and an M.S. in Computer Science would make such a statement. Of course, his follow-up statement that the "larger and more important story" involves the fact that "software development is a new kind of creative activity, one that defies the neat and mutually exclusive categorizations of intellectual effort as either artistic or scientific" might be true, Frederick P. Brooks wrote extensively on this topic in his classic tome on software engineering long before the USPTO permitted the filing of related patents. Fortunately, Nichols dedicates most of his work to the more boring subject matter, although unfortunately the explanations provided are a bit boring themselves.

Putting aside the fact that this book was written in the late 1990s, however, there is a lot to offer here to the professional software engineer as well as the non-technical management community associated with software interests of this nature. For example, the author's concise 20-page introduction introduces well much of the background subject matter. Nichols also discusses well the topics of algorithms, programming, computer science, software engineering, and how patents fit in with this universe. The heart of the text, the third chapter which presents various software patent examples, however, is very poorly constructed in my opinion, although the explanation in its first few pages on major terms such as "novelty" and "nonobviousness" is concisely written. The diagram provided that depicts concepts related to nonobviousness, written in the style of a Venn diagram, is especially well suited for the discussion. The fourth chapter covers the software patent controversy, and the reader is well rewarded in my opinion when reaching this point in the book after 50 pages of rambling.

It is strange that the seventh chapter is dedicated to a definition of programming, a discussion best suited for the introductory pages of the book, although some of the quotes provided in these pages are quite entertaining, such as the W. Saba quote from an IEEE periodical that "hardware engineers have gone further than their software counterparts because hardware design became a science...Unlike hardware engineers, software engineers still deal in magic and witchcraft". Interestingly enough, it was just recently that The Economist discussed the emergence of computer science as the foundational branch of science. Last of all, while the sixth chapter boldly begins by proclaiming "we've finally come to the good part" because it deals with recommendations for software developers, only 6 pages are dedicated to the subject! If Nichols is to write further on software patents, I recommend an entire book dedicated to recommendations.

New Book Review: "Influence"

New book review for Influence: Science and Practice, by Robert B. Cialdini, Pearson Education, 2009, reposted here:

The quote by Tom Peters on the cover of the fifth edition is what helped compel me to purchase this text: "If everything were on the line in a negotiation, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have advising me than Bob Cialdini." A colleague of mine noted after the fact that this book recently appeared on a top-20 list of leadership books to read this year, but I have read my share of leadership texts, so what interested me was its apparent focus on negotiation. To some extent, this book is faintly reminiscent of an audio tape called "The Psychology of Selling" by Brian Tracy that a former colleague of mine recommended early in my career, because the focus here is looking at the factors that cause individuals to say "yes", and the techniques that most effectively use these factors to bring about such a decision.

This book is organized around the 6 psychological principles that direct human behavior and give these techniques their power: reciprocation, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. Although this book may have been written to engage the popular reader, the conclusions that the author, a psychology professor at Arizona State University, reaches are based on controlled, psychological research. As Cialdini entertainingly walks the reader through what he learned during his 3-year period of participant observation that served as input to this book, in my opinion although he is both successful at instruction as well as keeping the reader engaged, as with many texts the reader will need to extrapolate in order to apply personally, especially if what is sought is application to the workplace.

Judging by the location of dog ears that were left behind after my reading of this text, the portions I especially appreciated are the first chapter, "Weapons of Influence", the last chapter, "Instant Influence: Primitive Consent for an Automatic Age", and the many sidebars throughout the body of what the author provides called "Reader's Reports". In fact, it turns out that the author has found that the "Readers's Reports" are one of the most popular aspects among readers, and in my opinion these are similar to the "Letters to the Editor" one might find in a newspaper or magazine: people writing in to the author to share how the principles and techniques that are presented in this text have been encountered in the real world. Fascinating lessons learned rooted in science. Recommended reading.

New Book Review: "Dr. Peeling's Principles of Management"

New book review for Dr. Peeling's Principles of Management: Practical Advice for the Front-Line Manager, by Nic Peeling, Dorset House, 2003, reposted here:

The aspect of this text that originally drew my attention was that it is published by Dorset House, which has still yet to disappoint after reading several of their books, including "Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects", by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, as well as "The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully" and "More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant's Tool Kit", both by Gerald M. Weinberg (see my reviews for all of these books). However, I admittedly was not sure what to expect from this text, even though it is subtitled "Practical Advice for the Front-Line Manager", because of the name "Dr. Peeling" within the title, a name of which I was not familiar.

Like me, the author works in a technical field, and although Peeling presents his management principles from the perspective of managing technical people, these principles can be applied to non-technical fields as well. Potential readers might want to keep in mind that this book is intended to be practical. The author explains in his introduction that after being thrust into management, he came up empty handed while searching for books that explain the basic theory and practice of management. "What I did not find were books that encapsulated best practice for someone facing management responsibilities for the first time. By the time I found such a book, I was well into my management career and had learned enough to know that I did not agree with much of what it contained."

The content of this book follows the journey of the author through management, and seeks to present what the author wishes he had known when he first found himself in a management role. Topics include managing people as individuals, managing problem staff and staff problems, managing people in teams - leadership principles, managing the practice of team leadership, project management, managing different types of staff, managing team culture, managing a failing team, organizing your team (and yourself), managing your universe, managing people outside your organization, revisiting common management themes, and managing in the real world.

While Peeling views himself to be a competent manager, he also views himself at best as only an average project manager, so the potential reader needs to keep in mind that although the advice that the author provides can be applied to a broader scope of individuals than originally envisioned, because there are substantial differences between management and project management not tied to a specific project, his chapter on project management is only a brief introduction. Plenty of books that focus on project management are readily available in the marketplace, so if the potential reader is looking for project management focus, it is advised to go elsewhere.

However, as a consultant who serves in leadership and project management roles while architecting and developing systems and software, I can attest to the fact that there is enough relevant material here to recommend to others seeking an alternative perspective to what might be found in other texts. And in addition, because the content of this book is shared by a manager, Peeling also provides a number of take-aways that the consultant might find useful to keep in mind when working with managers on client engagements. And somewhat reminiscent of Gerald M. Weinberg, Peeling periodically presents tangible rules throughout, such as "The Golden Rule of Management, which states that "You will be judged by your actions, not by your words, and your actions shall set the example of your team to follow."

Chapters that I especially appreciate include Chapter 9, "Organizing Your Team (and Yourself)" and Chapter 10, "Managing Your Universe". In the former, the author recommends, for example, to "reduce your level of perfectionism on appropriate tasks", and that "two roles you might want to delegate are those of operations manager and routine personnel manager." In the latter, the author offers, in his own words, "the hard-won experience of my own mistakes." He writes, for example, to "remember that managerial incompetence is much more prevalent than conspiracy", and offers several recommendations with regard to managing office politics. And his brief instruction to "accommodate benign neglect" is one of the best take-aways for me personally.

New Book Review: "Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture"

New book review for Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework (Third Edition), by Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, Jossey-Bass, 2011, reposted here:

In the introduction to this book, the authors share the familiar Tom Peters quote, "If you're not confused, you're not paying attention", because the purpose here is "not to offer one more panacea for coping with our turbulent times or to introduce another management fad." In the words of the authors, this book "provides a framework, a sense-making tool, a set of systematic steps, and a methodology for helping managers and their organizations adapt to the demands of the environment. It focuses less on the right answers than it does on the methods and mechanisms available to help managers change the most fundamental elements of their organizations" at the cultural level.

While the authors also state that other proposed approaches to measuring organizational culture have been proposed, and that their intent is not to provide an extensive review of this literature, they also provide what I consider important background information to the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI), which includes the facts that the OCAI (based on the Competing Values Framework) is probably the most frequently used instrument for assessing organizational culture in the world today, and that although some versions are longer, some including up to 24 items that together describe organizational culture, the 6 items that are used in this book provide a simpler synthesis that addresses fundamental manifestations of organizational culture.

After walking through the OCAI current profile worksheet, which addresses basic assumptions (dominant characteristics, organizational glue), interaction patterns (leadership, management of employees), and organizational direction (strategic emphasis, criteria of success) that typify the fundamentals of culture, the authors present the two major dimensions organized into four main clusters that define organizational effectiveness. The first dimension differentiates effectiveness criteria that emphasize flexibility, discretion, and dynamism from criteria that emphasize stability, order, and control. The second dimension differentiates effectiveness criteria that emphasize an internal orientation, integration, and unity from criteria that emphasize an external orientation, differentiation, and rivalry.

These four main clusters can be visualized as the Clan, Adhocracy, Hierarchy, and Market quadrants of a graph. Because these quadrant names were derived from the scholarly literature, the authors also conveniently provide counterpart names to which they think business executives and other nonacademic audiences might better relate (Collaborate, Create, Control, Compete). The authors note that while designed to assess organizational culture, these clusters can also be used to assess leadership roles, organizational effectiveness, and management roles, and provide several examples that demonstrate applicability to these other areas. In chapter 6 and Appendix B, the authors even provide an extension to the Competing Values Framework based on the Management Skills Assessment Instrument (MSAI) to address the personal behavior change on which a change in organizational culture depends.

In my opinion, the nine managerial competencies addressed for management across the four quadrants are more tangible (Clan = managing teams, managing interpersonal relationships, managing the development of others, Adhocracy = managing innovation, managing the future, managing continuous improvement, Hierarchy = managing acculturation, managing the control system, managing coordination, Market = managing competitiveness, energizing employees, managing customer service), although while the authors present at length the fact that the four quadrants for organizational culture depend on a "Means-Does Not Mean" analysis to be completed by stakeholders in order to determine what chosen future state organizational culture actually means in a relative sense, this analysis is not provided in the context of managerial competencies directly since these are intended to lead to the desired future state organizational culture.

Overall, however, Cameron and Quinn present the process to diagnose organizational culture extremely well, and they do note repeatedly, as can be expected, that it is not possible to present a cookie-cutter approach because of the continuum nature of culture. From the perspective of a consultant, I especially appreciate the many examples that the authors provide that demonstrate example company profiles and shifts in company culture over time. The average culture profiles for various industry groups that the authors present are also well received, although it is important for potential readers of this book to realize that the categorizations for these groups are very broad.

For example, consulting services might technically fall under the "services" group, which obviously encompasses a wide spectrum of companies, although in such a case it might be beneficial to look at cultural profiles of client industry groups. As a consultant in the software industry, I could not help but notice that this book ties in well with a book I read several years ago entitled "Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed", by Barry Boehm and Richard Turner. While that text is narrowly focused on choosing a software development methodology, a culture dimension of plots reminiscent of those seen in the book under review here can be seen as output from what Cameron and Quinn provide.

Interestingly enough, while the term "changing" sits alongside "diagnosing" in the title of this work, it is really not until Appendix C and Appendix D that the former is addressed with any substance. It is actually understandable why this is the case - change is multifaceted and covered by numerous other titles - but I would personally like to see the authors expand on these appendixes in another book, because the content provides hints for initiating organizational culture change and improving personal management competencies that specifically address the quadrants discussed in the book. Well written and focused business text recommended to anyone seeking understanding of organizational culture or personal management competencies as they relate to their own situations or to situations of customers and clients.

New Book Review: "The Cloud at Your Service"

New book review for The Cloud at Your Service: The When, How, and Why of Enterprise Cloud Computing, by Jothy Rosenberg and Arthur Mateos, Manning, 2011, reposted here:

Potential readers of this text, especially those familiar with Manning, might be interested in knowing that in their preface, the authors indicate they "had to convince Manning to publish a book that wasn't aimed squarely at programmers. When we told them the book had no source code, that didn't compute. We held firm, arguing that a huge need exists for a book that tells it like it is for the enterprise IT worker. The cloud will eventually have its greatest effect on the largest of organizations. But they're precisely the organizations that have the most trouble changing. We wanted to talk directly to you about how to undertake this shift, what it will mean to you and your organization, and how to proceed in a sane and reasonable manner."

The authors are correct that this need exists, and after reading what they have to offer here, this space will continue to need additional contributions for quite some time. As a consultant leading a virtualization project this past year, a prior reading of this text would have helped prepare me for some of the discussions that ensued with client personnel. While technical texts such as "VMWare vSphere 4" by Scott Lowe (see my review), significantly increased my confidence at a product level, the periodic conversations surrounding what can be seen as a possible next step following virtualization, use of a cloud, could have benefited from materials like the authors provide here, because quite simply there are very few product neutral, cloud focused texts.

The authors actually do provide some source code, however minimal, in this text, but it is mainly confined to what Amazon provides with its cloud API. Some code snippets from competitors such as Microsoft are also provided for contrast, even though the authors indicate throughout the text that Amazon leads the pack and predict that Amazon will continue to lead in upcoming years, mainly because Amazon got to the starting line earlier due to providing to the public what it first had utilized solely for internal solutions. The first few chapters, entitled "What is Cloud Computing?", "Understanding Cloud Computing Classifications", "The Business Case for Cloud Computing", "Security and the Private Cloud", and "Designing and Architecting for Cloud Scale", together with the concluding chapter, "The Future of the Cloud", were well done, but chapters "Achieving High Reliability at Cloud Scale", "Testing, Deployment, and Operations in the Cloud", and "Practical Considerations" feel at times rushed or out of place.

The target audience of this book is probably greater than what the authors surmise, which is to say that regardless of whether protential readers are managers or programmers, anyone interested in quickly getting up to speed with some of the core tenants of cloud computing can probably benefit from this book. As a consultant architect, I especially appreciated the persistence of the authors throughout the text of focusing on the five main principles that define cloud computing (pooled computing resources available to any subscribing users, virtualized computing resources to maximize hardware utilization, elastic scaling up or down according to need, automated creation of new virtual machines or deletion of existing ones, and resource usage billed only as used). In addition, the authors present the high-level business and architectural cases for cloud computing well.

New Book Review: "Managing Time in Relational Databases"

New book review for Managing Time in Relational Databases: How to Design, Update and Query Temporal Data, by Tom Johnston and Randall Weis, Morgan Kaufmann, 2010, reposted here:

When this book was published last year, I must admit that the data architect in me was excited that an advanced database text had finally come along that addressed some issues that every data modeler must face (or should face) once they have mastered the rudimentary. The bulk of published database related books discuss SQL, or usage of specific database products. And while more books are beginning to appear on shelves that address topics such as data modeling, this genre is certainly in need of more texts that address the full spectrum of database usage.

Despite the weightiness of this 400-page effort, which required quite the journey (be forewarned), this book is one of the most painstakingly detailed technology efforts that I have read in quite some time that goes to great lengths in making sure the reader understands the material that is presented. No stones are left unturned along the way in the explanations of the authors on how to design, update, and query temporal data. In addition, the introductions that Johnston and Weis provide on temporal data management and asserted versioning in the first 150 pages are unrivaled in textbook publishing.

The authors state in their preface that there are four objectives of this book: (1) to describe how to manage uni-temporal and bi-temporal data in relational databases in such a way that they can be seamlessly accessed together with current data, (2) to describe how to encapsulate the complexities of uni-temporal and bi-temporal data management, (3) to explain how to implement temporal data management as an enterprise solution, and (4) to describe how to bring pending transactions into the production tables that are their targets, and how to retain posted transactions in those same tables.

The authors also note that as this book when to press, they started the process of converting their initial provisional patent application for Asserted Versioning into a patent application, although any non-software-vendor company is granted the right to develop its own temporal data management software based on the concepts presented in this book, as long as such software is for use only by the company and not sold, leased, licensed, or given away to any other company or individual. An implementation of the concepts presented by the authors, the Asserted Versioning Framework (AVF), is also being created by the authors.

Superb illustrations accompany explanations of concepts in all the right places. And the concluding chapter that the authors provide offers more substance than many lengthy white papers, offering an "ongoing research and development" section that presents a partial list of topics on which the authors are working, with topics such as use of AVF via Java and Hibernate of special interest to me. The asserted versioning glossary that spans over 50 pages of fine print and concludes the text is also highly appreciated. Well recommended to all data professionals.

New Book Review: "IBM WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliance Handbook"

New book review for IBM WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliance Handbook, by Bill Hines, John Rasmussen, Jaime Ryan, Simon Kapadia, and Jim Brennan, IBM Press, 2008, reposted here:

A couple months ago, I read through this near 900-page text in preparation for the project I am currently leading to move my client from proprietary software built in-house to a suite of WebSphere branded products that includes DataPower. While the scope of the project ended up changing to exclude work on DataPower, the background that this book provided was immensely valuable in getting an understanding of the client product environment from both an architecture perspective and an in-the-trenches development perspective.

Prior to reading this text, I read through other material such as Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the IBM RedBooks series "IBM WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances", but even though IBM RedBooks provide valuable information, and I regularly reference both IBM product manuals and IBM RedBooks while working with the rest of the WebSphere branded suite of products being used for this particular project, such as WebSphere Message Broker Toolkit and WebSphere Transformation Extender Design Studio, I find this book much more practical for DataPower.

While I extolled the benefits that vendor neutrality provided another IBM Press text, "Enterprise Master Data Management: An SOA Approach to Managing Core Information" (see my review), what the authors provide here is intended to focus on DataPower, and additional non-IBM background material is provided to both those new to this space and those who need to get acquainted with the particular contexts in which DataPower might apply.

My focus was on the DataPower XI50 integration appliance, although this text also covers the XA35 entry level product and the XS40 security appliance. The Chapter 1 introduction to appliances and the DataPower family outshines all of the presentations found readily via search engines, including those from IBM, and the coverage of DataPower setup, configuration, networking, services, management, and security literally starts from square one. The best practices and insight you will not find from any other printed material is what sets this book apart. Well recommended.

New Book Review: "The Limits of Strategy"

New book review for The Limits of Strategy: Lessons in Leadership from the Computer Industry, by Ernest von Simson, iUniverse, 2010, reposted here:

In my opinion, it is amazing that so few reviews have been posted for this extremely insightful effort by Ernest von Simson, veteran consultant and co-founder of Research Board, an international think tank that investigates developments in the computing world and how corporations should adapt. Ever since an editorial on cloud computing in "The Wall Street Journal" mentioned this book in passing in March 2011, I have been working through the dense but conversational 400-pages that von Simson offers the reader, arriving at the conclusion that not only is this book one of the best business texts I have ever read, it should be considered required reading for the business- and technology-minded in school, as well as anyone involved in strategic decision making in the workplace.

Not only does von Simson present very detailed notes from many of his conversations with business leaders from 1974 through 2000 when explosive changes in the computer industry took place, he provides insightful analysis throughout, while even briefly discussing the initial failed business efforts of he and his wife, Naomi. In the words of the author, their friends prescribed that they "build a group of clients, major companies that needed to mesh their strategies with the exploding world of computing", "investigate what developments were coming, what adjustments they should make, and how to integrate information technology into their operations", and "scrutinize all the major technology companies and advise our clients on what the IT leaders were doing, how good they are, and who was ahead in which new fields."

Later, von Simson notes that "by the time we sold the Research Board to Gartner Group in 1999, we had written nearly one hundred reports. Every year, we would assess the overall condition of the industry - which companies were doing what, and how well; what big breakthroughs seemed near. We also researched how the largest enterprises used new technologies to the best advantages as well as demographics and the labor force and the relationship of IT departments to the other activities in a company. What we learned, we recorded in thousands of written pages and in our memories. The lessons learned over that entire period are distilled and related here."

While this text provided natural follow-up to recently read texts "The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century", by Christopher D. McKenna, and "IBM and the Holocaust", by Edwin Black (see my reviews), what sets this work apart from these related efforts are two seemingly opposed characteristics: industry-wide breadth, and intimacy that is only available through face-to-face interaction. However, as with these other sizeable books, a review limited to the space available here is difficult, so what follows are some quotations that I especially appreciated and which hopefully prompt other visitors to read through the pages of this text, even if only by skimming, if that is even possible.

In chapter 6, "First Movers: The Dawning of the Personal Computer", Sam Bernstein, VP of Marketing at Commodore Computing, is quoted as saying that "in 1970, when everyone else was selling calculators for $1,000, [Victor] had one for $195. We thought that the entire industry would sell 100,000; actually, as prices declined, fifty million were shipped (a classic case of price elasticity). Everyone asked us, 'What about service?' I said, 'Nonsense. For $195, let them send it to the factory.' They said, 'What about salesmen? How will customers learn to use their equipment properly?' I said, 'For $195, let them teach themselves.'"

In chapter 7, "Defeated in Succession", the author notes that "during the seven years of pointless internal dithering, the Doctor [An Wang] had remained determined to leave the company to his son, notwithstanding the availability of a more capable choice. But could the old man listen to his born successor as Tom Watson Sr. had listened to his? It's impossible to imagine Fred saying, as Watson Jr. had told a journalist after his father died: 'My father and I had terrible fights. He seemed like a blanket that covered everything. I wanted to best him but also to make him proud of me. I really enjoyed the 10 years with him.' Instead, it appeared, Fred received a vote of no confidence from his parents, though he was allowed to remain on the board."

In chapter 11, "Self-Accelerating Economies of Scale: Apple, Microsoft, and Dell", von Simson recounts when he and Naomi first met Steve Jobs just three days before Apple's 1983 introduction of the Macintosh, when during their meeting Jobs "leapt to a whiteboard and began sketching a visual analogy: By the 1890s, the telegraph was already fifty years old, and 25,000 people worked as trained operators. Someone may have suggested putting a telegraph key on every office desk to expand communications, Steve said, but it was impractical and time-consuming to teach everyone Morse Code."

"About the same time, though, the telephone was invented. The function was the same - communications - but now anyone could talk or even sing to anyone else, no training required. In just ten years, 200,000 telephones were installed. Steve Jobs was selling to people who could use the telephone; Digital, IBM, and the others were still targeting the telegraph operators. Price and ease of use, he concluded, carried implications for sales approach, customer training, and field maintenance similar to those experienced previously by the makers of electromechanical calculators."

In chapter 12, "Choosing the Wrong War: IBM Takes on Microsoft", in the midst of the author's recounting of his visits to Microsoft in Redmond, quotes "Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM", by Paul Carroll, a "The Wall Street Journal" reporter, as writing "One of the biggest fights IBM and Microsoft developers had came when a Microsoft developer took a piece of IBM code that required 33,000 characters of space and rewrote it in 200 characters, 1/160th of the original space." Comments von Simson, "the episode makes the IBMers seem muddily stupid. Certainly, Microsoft had the advantage in attracting brilliant computer science graduates steeped in the latest programming techniques from the best universities."

"But IBM had years of experience tightening 'path lengths', that is, the number of instructions in the path to complete any routine." Later, "Mike Maples was correctly philosophical with us: 'We faced Hobson's choice - either delay release for a year or go to market with what we had and learn from early-user experience. We chose the latter.' Good strategy, great product, but not necessarily a model of disciplined or efficient programming." Although many practitioners today might argue otherwise, this philosophy is much in line with "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses", by Eric Ries (see my review).

In chapter 18, "Squandered Competitive Advantage: IBM Mainframes and Minicomputers", after the author remarks that "competitive advantage can be squandered by executive indecision in a surprisingly short time", and "a delayed decision can be far worse than a mediocre decision", describes his IBM visit following the 1981 reorganization, during which time a merge or discontinuance of five midrange product families was discussed with Mitch Watson."

"Mitch offered four alternatives: "(1) create an outer skin of compatibility by making applications programming languages like COBOL work identically everywhere, (2) mask the differences with a software layer of microcode while leaving the underlying hardware and software, (3) find each mini a distinct market niche, and (4) kill a couple. 'That last would make some customers unhappy', allowed Watson. Yes, 'but the only assurance we'll regain economies in manufacturing and field support is to simplify our product line,' added the planning manager, Mike Maples."

New Book Review: "Lean Integration"

New book review for Lean Integration: An Integration Factory Approach to Business Agility, by John G. Schmidt and David Lyle, Addison-Wesley, 2010, reposted here:

A text published several years ago by the same authors, "Integration Competency Center: An Implementation Methodology", initially captured my interest in this recently released book. Although the authors note in their introduction that this text builds on the earlier work, they also indicate that it is not necessary to read these sequentially. The concept of "lean integation" builds on prior works by other authors such as "Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit" by Mary and Tom Poppendieck (see my review), and because of my experience using Agile and Six Sigma, I have continued interest in how I might also apply Lean principles as a consultant. And this interest is especially in light of my involvement in various database and integation related efforts. In the context of this text, the authors broadly define "integration" as "the practice of making independent applications work together as a cohesive system on an ongoing basis", and indicate that solutions typically fall into either process integration or data integration.

This book is divided into three parts. The first provides an overview and justification for Lean as well as an overview of Lean practices and what the authors deem the "Integration Factory". The second part walks through the seven lean integration principles associated with the Integration Factory: focus on the customer and eliminate waste, continuously improve, empower the team, optimize the whole, plan for change, automate processes, and build quality in. The third part discusses best practices grouped by seven competency areas: financial management, integration methodology, metadata management, information architecture, business process management, modeling management, and integration systems. Aside from the typical glossary and terminology that the appendixes provide, the authors also include the "Integration Laws" from the predecessor to this book: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts", "There is no end state", "There are no universal standards", "Information adapts to meet local needs", and "All details are relevant".

The first two parts of this book continued to capture my interest, and although the third part on implementation practices contains some relevant material, the lack of cohesiveness in these last few chapters was disappointing, and because the term "implementation" used here implies a bit more concreteness than was offered by the authors, my expectations were unfortunately not met. Exceptions include Chapter 11 on financial management, which addresses the ability to secure funding for integration projects, rightly calling this the weakest skills among IT professionals, and Chapter 16 on modeling management, in which the authors address important risks to IT professionals, such as the risk that use of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) can lead to new hairballs. As with another recently read book that I recommend, "Enterprise Master Data Management: An SOA Approach to Managing Core Information" published by IBM Press (see my review), one refreshing aspect of this text is that even though the authors are from Informatica, the content remains very much vendor neutral. Well recommended.