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I had a presentation today for a whole bunch of people. These guys were from all over the company; implementation consultants, service desk employees and sales people. When you think about that is a fairly diverse group of people. As I was standing there taking the usual abuse why we didn’t do this or that, I came to realize how many stakeholders I actually have, and skewed my time table is, considering who I spend my time on these days.

These days I spend a lot of time with development team in Manila. It is a group of very talented developers and testers, but since they have no experience with this kind of application, we are spending a lot of time attempting to transfer the necessary knowledge. Unfortunately that means that I have neglected my usual stakeholders. So, just for the fun of it I decided to use my Friday evening on making a diagram of all the stakeholders I have as a product manager. I know I need a life, but be that as it may, you can see the diagram below.

I know I should have made a Visio diagram, but even I have my limits, especially on Friday evening. So anyway, what does this over simple drawing show? Basically, it shows that top management wants to develop some kind of feature. It can either be to position the product in the market or to live up to contract requirements etc. Normally, product management would have a pretty big say in these decisions, considering we are supposed to know not only the application but also the market, the users and the competitors.

Firstly, we need to coordinate with the development department. How are we going to solve this issue? How does it fit with the existing code? These discussions are usually quite iterative in nature and result in a specification, which in my case is a user story.

And this is where I believe the flow must never stop. If we are to really capitalize on our investment in the product, we need to tell the sales force what they are going to sell and why. We need to tell consulting how it works and how it is implemented. We need to tell operations how to support this new feature and finally we need to provide input to marketing about what they should say to the market.

All of these tasks make product development a complicated task, because even if the arrows above only point in one direction, they should also go the other way. Most departments have requirements to our product. It should be sexy, so it is easier to sell, it should be robust so it is easy for operations to support it etc. And this leads me to the point of this post, and the point is that perhaps the most intricate part of the PM’s job is to ensure profitability on the products. We derive profitability not only from the top line, meaning revenue, but also by ensuring that the software and services we create are easy to work with so the organization does not need to spend a lot of resources in order to make this thing work. This also means that, at least theoretically, that it will be more profitable to say no to the customer, if they request a feature we cannot sell to other customers, or that the operations are too high or even if we move beyond our product domain. Not exactly a popular opinion among all people, but nevertheless an argument I fully believe in.

If we applied general systems theory, we could draw a diagram of subsystems that are intertwined and together form the basis of our return on investment.

Let me start by saying that I am kinda partial to Windows Live, or whatever it is called these days. I am not really a big brand guy in this respect, as long as it works for me I am happy. Lots of people are more into Gmail for instance, but it never really offered me anything that Hotmail didn’t do as well.

But this post is about Skydrive, the online storage service that is part of the Windows Live family. Yesterday the Skydrive team launched apps for Windows Phone and iPhone simultaneously. Gone are the days when Microsoft would keep their best apps on the Windows platform, enter the days when Microsoft is no longer the all dominating platform. I am not big on Apple’s products as such, but I do have an iPad and it so cool to able to use OneNote along with my Skydrive on a  non-Microsoft platform.

The really cool thing about this move is that the consumer gets the real deal, and not some watered version of an app. The notable exception being the Xbox app for iPhone, which is just a little too little comapared to the Windows Phone version.

Anyway, I can highly recommend using these apps regardless of your platform of choice.

Det virker, men man skal nok lige vænne sig til det.

Steve Keifer skriver på sin blog:’

SAP announced this morning that it plans to fully acquire Crossgate. This is good news for the B2B integration sector as it acknowledges I trend that I have been discussing on the EDInomics blog for several years now. B2B integration is becoming increasingly strategic to large corporations. As more and more specialization and outsourcing occur in the value chain there is a stronger need for companies to gather information from their extended ecosystem of business partners (think contract manufacturers, 3rd party logistics providers, component suppliers, channel distributors and freight forwarders). And SAP is not the only one making strategic investments in B2B. In fact, most of the large software and technology powerhouses already have invested in B2B.

SAP – Announced its acquisition of Crossgate today. Over the years, SAP has also maintained a close partnership with Seeburger. Seeburger announced an expansion of its partner program this morning as well, which was timely. SAP’s greatest investment in integration technologies, however, has been in its XI middleware platform which cannot only be used for B2B, but also A2A between ERP applications.

Oracle – In 2008 Oracle acquired BEA whose WebLogic products were highly regarded in the integration space. WebLogic was added to the Oracle Fusion Middleware suite which includes a broad range of service oriented architecture, business process management and data integration technologies. Oracle does have a B2B Gateway although it is not featured as prominently in its marketing efforts.

IBM – Acquired Sterling Commerce in May 2010 providing it with a strong B2B integration server and EDI network. Sterling’s products have become the foundation for IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative. Many of Sterling products are also being merged into IBM’s broader Websphere middleware portfolio. In addition to Sterling, IBM also acquired Cast Iron Systems which offered an appliance technology for the fast growing SaaS integration sector. And last, but not least IBM was also one of the original investors in SaaS-provider E2open during the dot com era.

Microsoft – Leverages its BizTalk Server as the foundation for its middleware and B2B integration strategy. In fact, just yesterday, Microsoft issued an announcement describing how BizTalk can be used for better bank connectivity.

HP – Has been rather quiet lately in the area of B2B integration lately. I suspect the company is busy with the divestiture of its PC business and the shutdown of WebOS. However, HP acquired EDS in 2008, which offers a family of Business Exchange Services for B2B e-commerce and EDI.

Sungard – Doesn’t receive as much credit as it should in B2B. But the $5 billion software and services company operates the Sungard Transaction Network which offers a range of integration services for securities trading and payment processing. Just yesterday, Sungard purchased a SWIFT service bureau in Europe to grow its integration business.

Kilde: Steve Keifer @ GXS

Noget kunne tyde på at interkonnektivitet er ved at blive hot I B2B segmentet.

I dag har jeg opdaget, at et supermarked ikke er et supermarked, samt at det ikke er muligt at købe hverken sokker eller trøjer med lange ærmer på Cypern.

Det er selvfølgelig noget af en overrivelse, men alle de supermarkeder jeg har været I I dag, har ikke haft nogle korte, hvide sokker, eller langeærmede T-shirts. I kid you not. Derimod har de en hel masse undelige souvenirs, som man skal være godt gal for at købe. Derudover tror jeg at dette sted ville være himlen for jurister med speciale I copyright infringement.

Vejret har ikke været helt så varmt som de seneste par dage, men det har faktisk væet meget behageligt. Vi har gået nogle lange ture langs stranden og det har ungerne nydt. Jeg har været ude og løbe igen I dag, og selvom jeg ikke løb vanvittigt lagt var det ualmindeligt hårdt. Jeg snakkede med en anden dasker hernede, som havde samme oplevelese, så der er sikkert noget med vejret, der gør det hårdt for os stakkels nordboere.

 

I morgen skal vi et smut til Nicosia, hvilket jeg tror bliver ret fedt. Forhåbentlig har de strømper og langærmede T-shirts der.

Så er der rigtigt gået ferie I den I dag. Her er næsten 30 grader varmt I dag, men poolen er tæt på og vandet er koldt, så man kan nemt køle sig ned.

Vi har brugt det meste af dagen ved poolkanten, men der er også blevet tid til at gå lidt rundt I Nissa Beach. Det meste af byen bærer præg af at være et  turist sted, hvilket er at forvente, men der er en del natur oplevelser at hente, hvis man gider gå lidt rundt.

Maden hernede er rimelig billig, og ganske god, dog kan jeg godt mærke at jeg ikke er vant til at spise så meget olie og fedtstof, som de bruger I maden hernede. Kaffen er ikke helt efter min smag, men man kan godt finde nogle kaffe joints, som laver en god cappucciono.

Jeg var I øvrigt ude at løbe I dag langs kysten. Det var en super tur, men varmen tog lidt pippet fras mig. Heldigvis kunne jeg hoppe I poolen med det samme, så det var ok.