Open Innovation Trumps Monoculture Myopia
Category Management
Last week, I posted my comments about the challenges facing IBM/Lotus professionals in their transition to an Eclipse platform. And, I appreciate the responses because they serve to open up dialog on the issue, and because I always need to run a reality check on my perspective.
Mikkel Heisterberg gave a nuanced overview of the platform migration plans, which is all true and good to keep things going as they are. I also had some feedback that suggested the .NET solution might be the right choice, and this might be the right time. Julian Robichaux and Kit Davis wrote their notes a little closer to my tone but are they are different in assessing whether there is a skill divide that needs to be addressed now, or later, when we can see what shakes out.
I need to be clear that I don't consider .NET a longterm solution. Microsoft development is still a monoculture solution, and I don't live in a monoculture IT world. There is a great editorial in this month's CIO.com by Michael Schrage, codirector of the MIT Media Lab's EMarkets Initiative that captures the essential distinction of working in open standards. Michael is quoting a friend of his, Peter Brondmo who explained why he was no longer so quick to offshore development, but was returning to in-house development:
What I see, is that open-standard development platforms, such as Eclipse, will give the most returns for the investment of labor--in the long term. In the short term, we have to skill-up , and that's going to be a hurdle to consider.
UPDATE: Mikkel Heisterberg has a thoughtful response to this post.
Last week, I posted my comments about the challenges facing IBM/Lotus professionals in their transition to an Eclipse platform. And, I appreciate the responses because they serve to open up dialog on the issue, and because I always need to run a reality check on my perspective.
Mikkel Heisterberg gave a nuanced overview of the platform migration plans, which is all true and good to keep things going as they are. I also had some feedback that suggested the .NET solution might be the right choice, and this might be the right time. Julian Robichaux and Kit Davis wrote their notes a little closer to my tone but are they are different in assessing whether there is a skill divide that needs to be addressed now, or later, when we can see what shakes out.
I need to be clear that I don't consider .NET a longterm solution. Microsoft development is still a monoculture solution, and I don't live in a monoculture IT world. There is a great editorial in this month's CIO.com by Michael Schrage, codirector of the MIT Media Lab's EMarkets Initiative that captures the essential distinction of working in open standards. Michael is quoting a friend of his, Peter Brondmo who explained why he was no longer so quick to offshore development, but was returning to in-house development:
"Development cost is still significant, but it's now focused on value creation, not infrastructure development," he added. "Open source and the availability of tools reduce our infrastructure cost. We don't have to pay for expensive software licenses and engineers to implement 'commodity' functions. So more money can be focused on innovation, not plumbing. We do more features faster. Development isn't really an obstacle."
Even allowing for hyperbole—perhaps Brondmo's "three days to three hours" time compression is really closer to "two days to five hours," we're still describing at least a fourfold productivity leap. That's impressive. Marry that to the evolving array of development-oriented communication, collaboration and search tools spilling into the global digi-sphere, and the serious CIO might want to delay that Bangalore RFP. The new economics of software development may have rendered India and China yesterday's fad.
What I see, is that open-standard development platforms, such as Eclipse, will give the most returns for the investment of labor--in the long term. In the short term, we have to skill-up , and that's going to be a hurdle to consider.
UPDATE: Mikkel Heisterberg has a thoughtful response to this post.
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