[General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
bashar abdullah
bashar.abdullah at gmail.com
Sat Jan 19 10:25:38 +03 2008
Burhan: Pretty true. Not for ERP only, but I have seen systems installed and
on the moment of presentation to top management they go "That's IT?"... YES
presenter replies. "Then I don't want it!". The hundreds of thousands go
down the drain BYE BYE. No salary raises this year we lost many money :P
On Jan 19, 2008 10:07 AM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
> Just to add to the discussion below; I think that in addition to the
> "misguided" (and I use that term generously) management and poor
> implementation teams that are betting the farm on the name of their
> provider and not their talent -- another factor that comes into play is
> that no implementer or management stakeholder actually asks the
> question: "Do we NEED ERP?" I know I spoke of this earlier, but I think
> it bears mentioning again that most of the times the core business issue
> that is supposed to be resolved is lost and instead what takes its place
> is more of bragging rights:
>
> "_______ company signed an agreement with _______ to implement their ERP
> solution for _______ (insert obnoxious amount of money)." -- this is
> usually a press release followed by a picture of the company upper
> C-levels and the implementer's C-levels shaking hands as if to say "I'll
> pay you a lot, just to make me look good".
>
> Operational guys lose in the end because unlike the people in the
> picture shaking hands; these operational people are the ones that will
> actually be using the system.
>
> And I agree wholeheartedly with the observation that most of the times
> the barriers to proper implementation are internal to the company;
> managers afraid of letting go and creating political red tape just to
> let others know that they are important.
>
> *sigh* -- sometimes I really wonder how these people manage anything
> other than keeping sure that they are deemed important.
>
> As a side effect of the above -- the burden is now on the consumer to be
> well informed. If you are not, then God help you if you fall for the
> crap that is spewed out by marketing heads.
>
> Thanks for your thoughts,
> Burhan
>
> bashar abdullah wrote:
> > Thanks Majed. I fully understand what you mean in terms of bad
> > management and bad implementers. Having worked 3 years in a supposedly
> > leading company, I have seen it all, had enough and quit really. It was
> > affecting my career. Over a year with literally zero achievement, and I
> > was wasting most my day on it.
> >
> > Oracle came presenting something as simple as DB Cluster and yet they
> > managed to make mistakes in numbers I pointed out from 1 hour reading a
> > head. Things like the cluster can take hundreds of nodes, while it only
> > takes 100, and cluster can work on different OS same time, or at least
> > different versions, when I am sure it only works on same OS and version
> > according to Oracle official document.
>
> I learned a long time ago to not pay much attention to the guy speaking
> about the product -- mainly because he is just reciting some copy from
> the marketing department.
>
> > God help us on the management for now. Something I got sure of is,
> > usually in Kuwait, all management is like what you talk about, and all
> > implementers are also of bad quality. Implementers are just bringing the
> > weight of the product name, but they are not qualified at all to
> > implement it. Otherwise how would an Oracle official claim MySQL has no
> > entity behind it, when the company is about to go public, and Sun is
> > bidding $1 billion to buy it! Database is your bread and butter and you
> > gotta know your competitors better.
> >
> > Let's see how it goes. Thanks again for your knowledge sharing.
> >
> >
> > On Jan 19, 2008 12:02 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com
> > <mailto:majedb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > You know, the biggest problem with any implementation, is the
> > management in the company. We had a hard time in our company because
> a
> > lot of the managers refused to cooperate, because the ERP system
> would
> > strip them of some powers. Even non-managers who had control over
> > things, that weren't traceable.
> >
> > And what made matters worse were the fact that the said managers
> were
> > in the company for over 10 years!! They act as if they're part of
> the
> > company; as if they OWN the company. The owners were sided with the
> > managers, for the *benefit* of the company... As one would expect,
> the
> > implemntation was not going anywhere, and the IT dept. was being
> > blamed!!!
> > Anyway, things got much better & got kicked off, as soon as we got a
> > CEO, and the owners got into the shadows.
> >
> > As for the implementing consultants, we've had some REALLY DUMB ones
> > onboard :/ You know, it just feels awkward when you know more
> about
> > Networking, Linux/Unix, Hardware & Databases, than the implementing
> > consultant !!!! (And I was a fresh graduate from Engineering!) --
> This
> > is what happens when you go for cheap implementors: Bad project
> > management, incomplete info about the feature-set of the ERP, and a
> > few more hiccups. Sometimes, it got to the point where I would
> re-read
> > the manuals, after they tell me something, only to find that THEY
> did
> > NOT read the manual properly (whether on purpose or not) .....
> > So, yeah ... Where's my elbow, would be a normal question, they
> > might ask you...
> >
> > Marketing hype is a disease that crawls into the mids of project
> > sponsors. *cough* Microsoft *cough* ....
> > It's where managers swim in their pink dreams, thinking that a piece
> > of software would do all the magic & take you up on Jack's magic
> > beans. Foreseeing the future is a key-point, in any implementation:
> > How much growth is the organization expecting (if it was small or
> > medium, especially), and how hard it is to get the data migrated to
> > other systems in the future.
> > In our case, our organization is already big, housing multiple
> > industries under one name, and having around 1500 employees.
> >
> > It would be nice if we had honest consultants/companies around...
> > Spreading wrong information, to sell a product, will only harm a
> > consultant's/company's image on the long run, but nobody seems to
> > care! Take Microsoft & Oracle as an example. Unless you knew which
> > questions you're supposed to ask, you won't get the proper answers;
> > the answers that matter to you, or your client.
> >
> > I had this problem, personally, with Microsoft & IBM. Whenever I
> want
> > a product, I'd do my own research online, and THEN I'd approach
> them,
> > hoping to not have missed a point that can be exploited...
> >
> > The 0.5 KD from a frustrated dude...
> > --
> > Majed B.
> >
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