iPads In The Enterprise

Computerworld has an article on how the manufacturing crowd is trying out the iPad. Quoting :

"When Apple created the iPad, the [manufacturing] industry had a sort of wake-up call ... that mobility is not only relevant for people outside the company, but also for those inside the company who have information needs and are not tied to their desk, but are tied to their asset," says Pierfrancesco Manenti, a manufacturing analyst at IDC Insights.

"With a relatively small investment, companies can re-create the whole information-on-the-fly scenario that was nearly impossible before unless they made enormous investments in PCs, cable networks and ruggedized PCs."

The iPad, and many of the other current tablet options, are primarily targeted at consumers for web and entertainment use. However, their long battery life, large display size, and lack of moving and exposed parts makes them surprisingly well suited for warehouse/industrial use. The low price point (roughly $500 for a tablet, verses over $2000 for a ‘smart’ scanner) means that there are compelling ROI reasons to consider them as well.

Tech-x has been using iPads in innovative ways since they were released - we pair them with a barcode scanner and portable printer for stock receiving and put away, we provide a dynamic pick list to warehouse staff, and we have management users access status or statistics on the go. Since CetecX, the current version of Cetec, is built around the web, the iPad is a natural fit.

RSA SecurID Breach, or Enterprise Insecurity

Back in March, RSA announced that they had suffered a security breach by sophisticated attackers, and speculation began to mount that their SecurID product (used by lots of financial and military customers) had been broken. Sure enough, a month or two later, Lockheed Martin announced that they had suffered a 'network intrusion'. Details are scarce, but speculation that a foreign government is behind the attack is rampant, and concern that this flagship security product has been fundamentally broken is high.

The situation illustrates the principle that, "Nothing is perfectly secure". If RSA and Lockheed Martin can be breached, both companies with extensive security experience, anyone can be. Computer security is like physical security, and just like in Ocean's 11, a truly determined adversary can find a way through any set of security.

Rather than thinking of security as a a quest for the "perfect system", think of security like a set of deterrents. Installing locks and an alarm on your car can reduce your odds of having your car stolen; those precautions may not make your car "un-stealable", but they are reasonable and responsible measures. Alternatively, we could all refuse to buy cars because they might be stolen (which would be a perfectly secure option), but the benefits of having a car clearly outweigh the risk that it might be stolen.

The current world of internet connected computers and networks, there are risks - but the benefits of email, ecommerce, and the internet outweigh these risks. There are some reasonable steps that should be taken to help stay secure - they may not be perfect solutions, but they are prudent, and it is naive to just hope nothing bad will happen. Tech-X is not a security company - we leave the extreme solutions to companies like RSA - but we can help you measure your risk, address the likely issues, and make sure that your doors are locked and the alarm is on. Implementing Proactive Security maintenance is one of the services offered in our Service Contracts; contact us to find out more.

Biggest ERP failure's of 2010

ComputerWorld has an interesting summary of the biggest ERP implementation failures of last year.  Some of the numbers are truly incomprehensible.  NY City is the biggest example.  Having budgeted $60 million for their implementation, they have spent over $700 million in taxpayers money trying to get the system up and running, still to no avail.

The article correctly points out that the implementation of an ERP software depends highly on three players.  The customer, the vendor, and the systems integrator.  Recently in conversation with a large ERP solutions company, they mentioned that they won't sell their system without first discovering the change management culture of the company that they will discuss with.  One primary reason is that clients that are averse to change will not have a successful deployment, and all of us in the ERP market know that one unsuccessful deployment can generate enough bad press to scare away many potential clients.

Some systems are very restrictive, but even so I would almost dare take the blame off the system itself.  The fact that all those mentioned in the article have had multiple times more successful deployments than failures would tell me that the blame must lie elsewhere.  The system integrators is a major contributing factor to the failure.  On one hand, a system integrator should not only be knowledgeable about the ERP system, but should also have knowledge about the business in which the system runs. Many consulting hours of the implementation need to be spent observing current processes and determining if the system will match those processes or if the system will never mold itself to the processes of the business.  At that point, a client can determine if perhaps they need to look at a different ERP or if they need to adjust their processes to fit the ERP.  For many companies the former is many times easier than the latter.  Unfortunately the former is not always going to be possible... but then again, neither is the latter, in some firms.

In ERP, Does One Size Fit All?

As Tech-X continues to serve it's CETEC customers, we have invested time and research into studying multiple ERP's in the Small and Medium Enterprise Markets.  It has been interesting to see ERP's that claim to be all things to all enterprises.  They claim to be just as applicable to Retail, as they are to Wholesale, as they are to Manufacturing (as if manufacturing were one product).  But can an ERP truly fit any industry or enterprise?  The answer depends on what you as an enterprise want to do.  The real question is are you willing to let the ERP drive your business or do you want your business to drive the ERP?

For example, take SAP.  SAP is the largest ERP in the market.  As far as a software, we must concede that it is extremely robust and complete.  Those who have researched SAP in the SME market would probably agree that on cost alone, SAP is not for everybody.  It is not an inexpensive ERP.  Also, unless costs are not a constraint, in most cases businesses need to adapt their procedures to the ERP, and not expect that the ERP will fit their business.

What about SaaS (Software as a Service, or "Cloud-based") models?  Plex is an excellent example of one of the fastest growing SaaS models in the market.  Technically, almost any ERP can be hosted in the cloud, but it may not make financial or business sense for everybody to go in that direction.  Certainly for new businesses that do not have the capital or infrastructure to set up a small data center in their building, some kind of hosting will go a long way.  Although we see the writing on the wall and recognize that cloud hosting is a growing trend, the financial and productivity costs of migrating to the cloud for many businesses is also a major barrier to entry.  SaaS is not for everyone, but it doesn't mean that it's not for some.

CETEC is a very "niche" ERP.  It was designed by Electronics components distributors and manufacturers for Electronics components distributors and manufacturers.  Not only does CETEC as a system function specifically for that business, but the entire team of Tech-X understand the processes that accompany the business.  Often we have even seen ourselves be pulled into management meetings while on site, to help give advice on best practices within the industry.  We even enjoy being asked to look over drawings of new manufacturing plants being designed to give our advice on how best improve the workflow.  Is CETEC for everyone?  Absolutely not.  If you are complex manufacturer, we would probably recommend that you look at other ERP models that fit your business better.  Can it be applied to industries outside of the Electronics Component Distribution and Manufacturing?  Probably so.  We set it up many years ago for a boat manufacturer who believed that CETEC was the best system for his business.  But if you are an electronics components distributor and manufacturer, I would say without hesitation that Cetec is the best ERP system out there.  The Tech-X team would come into your business and ask the relevant questions that would help you integrate CETEC is such a way that your ERP is actually doing what your business needs it to do.

Currently we are working on a major CETEC upgrade that would bring CETEC into this new decade.  That release will be announced to our existing client base soon.  It will make training on CETEC much easier as it will be more intuitive, but also will increase the functionality and capacity of CETEC.

Contact us if you have any more questions about CETEC or other Tech-X products.

Google Email Outage

Monday morning I read the news about how Google had an email outage where 150000 accounts had lost their email accessibility and even all their previous emails.  Some even predicted that this would be a huge obstacle to Google's pursuit of the enterprise market.  Since some of our clients have migrated to Google for their email and collaboration solution, I felt it would be important to share what we as a Tech consulting business consider as both positive and negative results of this Google email outage.  At the same time it's important to note that this was a Gmail outage, which is not guaranteed uptime from Google, and not a Google Apps outage, which has a 99.99% SLA. (Correction:  Originally this was announced as a Gmail outage.  I cannot confirm if no Google Apps users were affected.)  Nonetheless, since the infrastructure is very similar the concerns are legitimate.

Negative:
1.  Google Apps can potentially crash. This could result in a real, although short, loss of communication to clients.
2.  Because Google Apps is hosted in the cloud, we are at the mercy of Google's engineers to get the email up and running, and there's little that we can do but wait.
3.  Google's communication and information relayed to their clients is in their hands, and may not be to our satisfaction.

Positive:
1.  Google responded as they immediately noticed the effects.  This was due to a roll out of a new software update,  which they stopped right away, and their engineers got to work on restoring people's downtime.
2.  Only 0.02% of their clients were affected by this downtime.
3.  All emails are backed up in multiple data centers.  In very few cases all those clients backups in the datacenters were lost... but Google had physical tape backups of all emails, and were able to restore them.
4.  This is how Google responded to the users of their free system.  Much more can be expected as users of their subscription service.
5.  No one experienced more than 24 hours of downtime.  Granted, in today's email world, that is huge, but onsite hosted services, such as Microsoft Exchange will experience much more downtime just for regular maintenance.
6.  Google has its top engineers working on this problem.  Because of Google's strict hiring practices, I can safely say that some of the best technicians in the World are making sure that this never happens again.  Most probably this exact problem will never happen, but something else will.  The previous comments will be just as true for those.

At Tech-X we stand by Google's email solution as the best out there, because of the 5 C's:  Cost, Convenience, Collaboration, Consistency, and Cloud.  This was proven true again through this outage.

Google Challenges hackers.

One question that comes up often when we discuss Google Apps is the security.  Somehow people assume that their datacenter in the back of their office is a much safer environment than one held in Google's Tier III and IV datacenters, with the best engineers and the best security systems, on their own built-by-Google-for-Google servers, redundancy in multiple scales, etc.  Granted, I understand that people fear that Google itself may be hacking into our information, but Google is very much aware that it's contracts and agreements prohibit it from doing so.  Here's a link to some security information.

Now, as Google begins to release it's new Chrome OS, a linux-based, cloud-based, platform, Google launched a new challenge to hackers.  Hack into our system, and you get $20,000.  I'm guessing Google actually wants people to figure out how to hack into their system, so that they can close those vulnerabilities before the release of this new system.

Recently Brent and I got a tour of Google's offices here in Austin, and we got to see a Chrome netbook.  I tried playing on it, but it wasn't quite up and running.  I've already requested two for our offices through their free trial, but Tech-X is not high enough on Google's priority list.

4G confusion.

Technology keeps changing, and we keep having to update our knowledge of what technology means.  This is advanced by the fact that people use terminology incorrectly and confuse matters worse.  One common one today is "the cloud."  Everything seems to be "the cloud" these days.  As long as it is hosted outside of your office, people seem to give themselves credit for being in the cloud.  I've posted plenty of articles on cloud technology in our facebook page, so I won't repeat those here.

Today, I ran across an article on the same issue happening with 4G offerings.  Wireless companies are all offering new phones which have 4G.   Basically, what most of us know about 4G is that it has to be better than 3G, because it is one number higher.  It must also be about twice as good as 2G, right?  According to an article on Wired magazine quoting the ITU standards, 4G is technology that "offers download speeds of 100Mbps to 1Gbps."  They proceed to pronounce that under this standards, no carriers are currently offering true 4G speeds.  4G basically means what I mentioned above.  It is the newer technology to 3G.

Personally, I own a 4G Android phone (go Google... again).  I haven't tried clocking the speed, but I love the functionality it has.  I can hotspot it, and allow various users to connect to my phone as an independent wireless line.  This has come in handy when I am in public places and their "free wifi" is too slow for my convenience.  So even though I haven't clocked it, I can say that it is much faster than a free wifi being used by multiple users watching youtube at the same time.  Plus it streams tv shows pretty well.