Want to be able to use Google to search your corporate intranet? You can sign up with it as a service, letting its spiders crawl over your side. Or you can buy their hardware. So the product range takes an interesting leap from a remote hosted service, to a piece of rack hardware.
Noticeably missing is the middle-ground of shrink-wrap software to be installed on your own hardware. This is a significant departure from the way software used to be sold.
This is the end-game of hardware commoditization at work. Against the price of developing and marketing software, the cost of hosting the app in some off-the-shelf hardware is pretty minor.
Compare the cost of hardware against that of installation support. Imagine if there was an installable “Google Intranet Search” product, designed to go onto a server run by the IT department. Well, first off, there would have to be a version for Windows, because some companies are Microsoft-only shops. That means at least two platforms to support. And then, now matter how fast and easy installation was, there would be a deluge of installation support calls coming in, because someone has the wrong version of the operating system, weird hardware or a conflicting application. This can get expensive.
The alternative is simply to bundle a computer with the software. This guarantees that the software is always installed on an appropriate operating system, with the appropriate hardware. It also dances around IT Department requirements for tech stacks, such as “we only support Microsoft”. Generally with appliances the operating system is hidden away from view (it’s usually Linux, but it doesn’t matter). The IT Department is simply told – “there is no operating system for you to support – just turn on the box and run the setup wizard”.
Put this together with software as a service (SaaS) and you have a pretty good offering. You can offer your app in basic, pro and enterprise flavors, or you send them a box. The software vendor doesn’t waste nearly as much time with installation support and the customer doesn’t have to maintain the software.
- Whats hotnewwebsite.com?
- Are you on/do you use hotnewwebsite.com?
- We’re building the hotnewwebsite.com for our obscure niche.
- Whats hotnewwebsite.com?
(Apologies to the “hollywood cycle” of which this is an obvious rip-off.)
Some user experience examples I’ve seen lately, all while eating and drinking:
Good: JambaJuice’s queueing system. Unlike Starbucks, where one has to remember what the heck one ordered, then scan the baristas as they call out your drink (me: “tall caramel frappuccino light no whip”), if Jamba Juice has a wait, the cashier asks the buyer for a name. That name gets put into the order system, so the Jamba Juice drink preparers look at the screen, and say, “David?” Only after they’ve identified me do they check that they’ve made the right drink.
Bad: These pizza boxes with ads on them. Good for the advertiser, and fairly innocuous on the consumer end, but a terrible thing for the pizza parlor.
I got lunch from a place that handed me one of these boxes today. I then brought it to a conference call, where my coworker so loved the look and smell of my lunch that she got a slice for herself. But did she go to my pizza joint? No, because when closed, my pizza was from Blockbuster By Mail Get Discounts On In-Store DVD Rentals. A good marketing opportunity wasted.
Good: The widespread adoption of CRM systems at local restaurants. Thanks, no doubt, to the success of sites like OpenTable and SeamlessWeb, the majority of restaurants in Manhattan keep computer systems that maintain lists of phone numbers with addresses attached to them. Now, when I order a meal from a usual spot, I don’t have to reiterate cross streets or apartment numbers; my phone number is all they need to identify me.
Bad: Styrofoam plates and cups are still routine with many of my deliveries. We need more green delivery.
Good: The just-right chewiness of Ricola Breath Mints.
Bad: Those breath mints’ side effects.
Ai is currently hiring a user experience lead to add to its UXD resources. (We’re hiring a freelance IA, too… email me if you know anyone for either position. But I digress.)
I have gotten an unsettling amount of recruiter contacts in the days since we posted the job ad. Most of them are polite enough, and I turn them down, politely. This is nothing new; Loren and I have a long history of frustration with muscle-in tactics.
But I occasionally get inquiries that just blow my mind. Consider this, which came to me via LinkedIn, which is usually a good place for targeted communication:
While Linked In is a great resource, it cannot give you access to the most elite talent in the Internet arena. We can. Our difference is that we aggressively call directly into your top competitors and leading firms in your field to source candidates who are among the top 10% in your industry.
Holy smokes! Here I am, trying to wisely use networking to extend the reach of my job ad. And I get a networking reply that suggests I use them to cold-call the competition until they unearth some good candidates.
Underneath the letter was some marketing copy, equally flabbergasting:
* Aggressive cold call recruiting.
Our recruiters make 150 or more calls per day. We directly call into your competitors to recruit the top 10% in North America.
The company promises quantity and quality! I was still working on the math behind that one as I read the last bullet:
* We work exclusively for you.
The candidates we recruit are exclusively yours, and we will never send someone we recruit on your behalf to any other company.
Somehow it’s hard to believe that a recruiter with hard-nose tactics like these won’t be sharing what little bits of successful entry it finds with every client it recruits.
I suppose there are employers out there who employ, and enjoy, these tactics. But I’m not on that list. (I wonder if I’m on the call list, though….)
The long-awaited Sports Museum of America opens to the public today.
It is an experiential place, full of tangible exhibits and games. One can hold Alex Rodriguez’s baseball bat, compare the weight of an Olympic javelin and shotput, and do skill tests in cycling, skiing, rowing and–most interesting–Nascar pit crew.
SmA is an Ai client, and a few of us had the pleasure of attending their opening night gala last night. (I posted a few photos after the event.) Having toured the museum firsthand, I can confirm that it’s great fun for any sports fan. We expected to just poke around during cocktails but wound up spending more than an hour reading, watching and playing.
Congratulations and best of luck to the Sports Museum of America and its founding team.
I have been surprised in recent months by the number of ecommerce sites that have defaulted to opt-in upon completion of a purchase.
Opt-in is, of course, supposed to be a voluntary and user-defined action. But it hasn’t been that way for me as much as it used to.
As consumer spending slows, retailers, anxious to retain traffic and minimize customer acquisition costs, are taking steps to reach out to shoppers that fit their profiles. And what better way to do that than by hitting up previously converted users?
Interestingly, the sites that have opted me in recently are not uninformed small businesses; they’re major corporations with major legal departments, all of whom should presumably know better. Among the offenders:
Have you been spammed–I mean, opted in–recently? By whom?