Software patents are stupid.  I know – that’s not original nor is it a particularly new concept. But it is still a topic worthy of discussion.

A Google search for “stupid software patents” yields more than 20,000 results.  Still, software patents are getting renewed attention because of a recent dispute between Oracle and Google.  In mid-August, Oracle filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming infringement of Oracle’s patents and copyrights by Google for unlawfully using Java in its Android mobile platform.  In the lawsuit, Oracle seeks “appropriate remedies” because Google “knowingly, directly, and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property” while developing Android.

The lawsuit has caused some uproar because it stems from Oracle’s recent acquisition of Sun Microsystems, the original developer of Java (and, therefore, the owner of patents related to it).

In contrast to Oracle, Sun was not a litigious company and for the most part, avoided aggressive legal action in defense of its own intellectual property.  But Oracle’s actions shouldn’t come as a surprise.  They’ve always been known as one of the most aggressive and confrontational powers in the technology industry.  After Oracle acquired Sun, Larry Ellison stated that Java was the “single most important software asset” that Oracle had ever acquired.  With that perception, it shouldn’t shock anyone that Oracle (and Ellison) would use it to aggressively pick a fight with Google.

I won’t try to decipher the legal foundation for the lawsuit here.  Did Google violate Java patents?  Probably – it’s nearly impossible these days to develop any substantial piece of software without infringing on somebody’s patents.  A 2004 study of Linux identified at least 283 patents that the open source operating system could potentially violate.  Every month, it seems, there’s a story of some big dispute where Company A claims that Promising New Product from Company B violates its patents.

Major technology companies work to build huge portfolios of patents, partially to provide negotiating options in these disputes.  Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Apple, HP, and many others actively pursue this approach.  Disputes between these big vendors are rare, perhaps because of the strength of these portfolios – it’s sort of like the threats of “mutually assured destruction” from nuclear arsenals of the US and USSR in the 1970s.

The patent system wasn’t designed for the patenting of software.  The U.S. patent code provides for the protection of “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.”  The original intent was for protecting inventors of machines or devices or manufacturing processes.  A series of legal decisions in the 1970s and 1980s opened the door for widespread approval of patents for processes defined in computer systems – i.e., software.

Unfortunately, patent examiners are often ill-equipped to evaluate software patents.  Descriptions are arcane and can be extremely technical.  The claims (which define the scope of the protection that the patent will provide) are often written by the patent applicant to be as broad and general as possible.  With that approach, if the patent is granted, it will provide broad and general protection, allowing the patent holder to reap benefits (by preventing others from developing similar processes or products).

The other primary problem patent examiners have is determining whether “prior art” exists.  If the invention has been described publicly prior to the patent application, then the patent won’t be granted.  Inventors and patent attorneys are legally required to identify any relevant references when they submit an application, but they may not be aware of (or make the effort to discover) whether that prior art exists.   Too often, examiners miss something, the patent is approved, and (too late) it’s discovered that the idea wasn’t really original at all.

Here are some examples of patents I think are stupid:

• Searching for goods on the internet
• Buying goods online
• Tracking computer system usage with cookies goods online
• Swinging side to side on a swing (OK – that’s not a software patent, but still…)
• Activating double click applications with a single click

The company I work for has a number of software patents.  We have some innovative technology that solves technical problems in unique ways.  Given the way the patent process currently works (and the way intellectual property protection is established), getting those patents was a sensible business decision for us.

As a business leader, I find myself in an uncertain position.  To be responsible in managing my company’s assets (the intellectual property of our innovations), I need to protect those assets within the existing system.  Unfortunately, as I described above, that system is deeply flawed and poorly implemented to manage software and technology products.

So, it’s a dilemma.  Do we submit patent applications, protecting our ideas?  Yes, we do.  But that doesn’t mean I like it – I’d much prefer for the system to be restructured to reflect the current needs of today’s inventors.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Patent unique software products that make sense, not broad software processes.

How do you convince people to do what you want them to do at work (or anywhere else, for that matter)?  Why does it seem that some people have that gift of rallying others to get things done?  It’s not just The Boss who convinces co-workers to do something.  In fact, in many organizations, management has far less influence than a well-respected colleague.

Last week, at Noetix, I delivered a management training session on this topic. It was pretty well-received by our employees, so I decided to reiterate some of my thoughts here.

Influencing people, presenting compelling arguments, building coalitions – these are all things that come fairly naturally to me.  After our HR Director asked me to provide this training session, I had to figure out what to say and found myself struggling to find the right words to describe my approach.  Like many people, I sometimes find it difficult to explain how to do something that comes easily to me.  It’s like asking a baseball player to explain how to hit a curve ball or asking a pianist to teach you to sight-read a piece of music.

After a little research on interpersonal networking, I discovered that there’s a whole science (with a lot of research behind it) on office politics and managing a network of colleagues and co-workers. For the most part, this science centers around two core concepts: power and influence.  In this context, the definitions of these terms are as follows:

• Power – the ability to get someone to do what you want or the ability to make things happen in the way that you want
• Influence – the result of exercising your power, expressed by how others respond (and adjust their behavior) to your power

Let’s explore some practical examples.

Power. What does it really mean and how can it help you?  Position power results from someone’s position in an organization.  Your boss has position power over you because she can create consequences that impact you.  Your manager can provide material rewards like a raise or a bonus, or negative consequences such as undesirable assignments or even employment termination.

There’s another kind of power: personal power.  If someone is well-respected or admired, they have power over others because people want to listen to them, and consider them likely to be on target with their insight.  If someone is particularly persuasive or convincing or believable, they also have power.  People will listen to them because their arguments are compelling.  And, if a co-worker is a recognized expert in some area, you’re likely to follow his or her lead in that area.

Influence. What does it really mean and how can it help you?  To be effective, you need to learn how to exercise influence upward (to your boss, her peers, her boss), laterally (to your peers and people at the same level in other departments), and, if you’re a manager, downward (to the people who report to you).  There are lots of influence techniques we all use every day.  We reason, we show friendliness, we bargain.  Sometimes, we resort to sticks instead of carrots: we threaten sanctions, cajole or even intimidate.  On occasion, we appeal to a higher authority.  Children do this, of course (“I’m going to tell Mommy!”), but we often see this in business, too – “You need to add this feature because I promised it to a customer”.  All of those actions have the same goal: to get someone to do what we want them to do.

How can you blend both power and influence to help you?  To be successful, you need to use your power to exert influence. Using “position power” isn’t always effective.  Any manager (and any parent) knows that “Because I said so!” isn’t a successful long-term approach for getting anyone to do anything.  Instead, we need to be a little more creative.  We use personal power to persuade others who also have power.  We seek out colleagues who are well-respected to try to convince them to be on our side.  We find an expert who will agree with our position and support it.  We divide and conquer: identify people who might disagree with us, isolate them, and try to convince them individually.  [This approach is closely related to “socializing the idea,” which sounds a lot nicer than “divide and conquer!”]

To successfully manage your network of co-workers, you need to understand the sources of power within that network.  Who are the experts?  Who is well respected?  Who respects you?  In addition, you need to try to understand the interests and objectives of others.  When you have that knowledge, you’ll be able to figure out the right techniques of influence to build consensus or gain allies.

A final (somewhat cautionary) word: use your power wisely.  You don’t want to end up like the bad parent or bad manager mentioned above. “Because I’m the boss” isn’t very compelling.  Maintain your integrity and your ethics as you work to find supporters and build coalitions.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

To get what you need, first understand who has the real power in your organization.  Then, find them and use your power to persuade them.

That Ain’t Right

Whenever I agree with Larry Ellison, I reconsider my position to make sure I’m thinking clearly.  This time, as I reconsidered and dug a little deeper, I decided that I didn’t agree with him after all.  Larry is wrong.

Ellison, the Founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, is notoriously direct, confrontational, and controversial.  He frequently makes outrageous claims about the software industry in general and about his competitors.  Earlier this week, Ellison attacked the decision by Hewlett Packard’s board of directors to demand the resignation of Mark Hurd, CEO of HP.

The Hurd story has been reported broadly over the past week.  In short, following an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against Hurd, the HP board found no evidence of sexual misconduct, but did find that he had filed incorrect expense reports.  The improper expense reports were (at least partially) to conceal his relationship with the woman involved (who was not an HP employee, but instead was a consultant hired by the company).

In typical Ellison fashion, his critique was blunt and unequivocal.  “The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago,” said Ellison in an email to the New York Times.  He added that, “In losing Mark Hurd, the HP board failed to act in the best interest of HP’s employees, shareholders, customers and partners,” pointing out that the board’s inquiry had concluded that the allegations of sexual harassment were false.

Ellison is, if nothing else, consistent.  Earlier this year, Oracle’s president, Charles Phillips (who is married), admitted to having an affair for more than eight years with another woman.  That affair became public in January 2010 when billboards highlighting the relationship were displayed in New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco.   Although the revelations were embarrassing for Phillips (who stated at the time that the affair had ended in 2008), there was no apparent lasting impact at Oracle.  Phillips remains in the same position he had when the story broke in January, with his role unchanged.

Ellison clearly values results above everything.  He places business performance at the top of the list for evaluating business people.  He is satisfied with Phillips’ leadership at Oracle.  Similarly, he makes it clear that he believes HP’s board (along with its employees and customers) should be satisfied with Hurd’s performance.

Ellison is right that Hurd has done a remarkable job in turning HP around.  As a business leader, he’s done well for the company.  He’s also right that Hurd’s behavior, regarding the possibility of harassment, was investigated and the board concluded that the allegations weren’t true.

There’s more to it than that, of course.  The expense account improprieties are (by all accounts) real and significant and deceptive.  That clearly destroys some level of trust between Hurd and the board and between Hurd and his subordinates at HP.  It’s wrong.

In addition, Hurd is a married man.  Regardless of whether you believe Hurd’s claims that there was no sexual relationship with this woman, there clearly was a pattern of deception.  Hurd’s marital commitments might not matter to Ellison (who has been married four times himself).  But they matter a lot to me.  That deception is also wrong.

Finally, there’s a concept that might seem quaint and outdated in today’s business world, especially to hard drivers like Ellison: The HP Way.  Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, the founders of Hewlett Packard, professed a management strategy and style that permeated the company throughout its first six decades.  Packard outlined their core values in the book The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company, explaining their commitment to openness, honesty, and flexibility throughout the organization.  The HP Way was a core foundation of values they had established (and adhered to) in running the company from its founding in 1938.  They formalized The HP Way in a written set of core objectives distributed to division managers in 1957 (just a year before the company went public).  Bill and Dave were respected (and eventually revered) for creating a work environment that emphasized trust and valued integrity, while still pursuing profitability.

I worked briefly for HP back in the late 80s.  My wife had joined HP as a summer intern following her junior year in college and she joined as a full-time software developer a year later.  I can assert, from close, first-hand experience that The HP Way was real, genuine, and immensely valuable.  I have a number of close friends who’ve spent all or most of their careers at HP, including a few approaching their 30^th anniversaries.

Mark Hurd and his predecessor, Carly Fiorina, completely transformed the company culture.  Their focus was to maximize growth and profitability at the expense of virtually everything else.  If necessary, the long-term company values espoused by Bill and Dave would be sacrificed in favor of financial objectives.  To the dismay of most long-time employees, The HP Way virtually disappeared as a guiding force and, fairly or not, Fiorina and Hurd were blamed for the change.

Hurd’s recent actions confirm, on a personal level, his antipathy to The HP Way.  He hasn’t acted with integrity.  He has violated the trust of his employees and the board of directors.  In his own words, Hurd “…did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP… .”  He deserved to lose his job.

Maybe, with this change, the HP board is taking the first step to try to restore The HP Way.

I hope so.  I think Bill and Dave would like that.

For now, I’ll leave you with this thought:

Business leaders need to act with integrity.  Always.

In the June 14, 2010 issue of Sports Illustrated, Denver Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels is quoted describing the philosophy taught to him by his former boss, Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick:

“Ideas should be innocent until proven guilty.  Some people think ideas are guilty until proven innocent. You might suggest a play or an idea to a coach, and it gets shot down right away—like, ‘Your idea is no good because I didn’t think of it.’ But if you do that too often, people stop coming up with ideas. And then you might be shutting off the flow of pretty good thoughts, and you’re stunting everyone’s development. I don’t want to be dictating. I want to be having conversations.”

Those thoughts from a football coach provide good advice for managers in any business.  No manager (in fact, no individual) can (or should expect to) have all the ideas and all the answers.  Anyone who tries is limiting the effectiveness of his team.

In football coaching circles, Belichick has a reputation as a genius.  His Patriots teams won three Super Bowls in four years from 2001 to 2004.  Like most reputed “geniuses”, Belichick also has his detractors.

Whatever you think of Belichick, it’s clear that he’s been a successful mentor and has helped recognize and develop coaching talent.  Six of his assistant coaches (including McDaniels) have become NFL head coaches.  Another five of his assistants became head coaches at NCAA universities.  Clearly, Belichick has done a good job of identifying potential leaders and developing them to the point that other organizations were willing to offer them control of their teams.  I’m convinced that Belichick’s willingness to accept others’ ideas – to treat those ideas as “innocent” and worthy of hearing – has contributed to that success.

I do have to add a caveat to this theme – a thought that was clearly (and humorously) detailed in Morris Beton’s blog a few weeks ago.  His point is clear: “Most ideas are bad.”   He elaborates with: “Even fewer are commercially viable, so just because someone in authority or with great credentials comes up with some invention or great idea or some excellent way of doing or creating something, don’t just assume it will fly. It probably won’t.”

I encourage you to read Morris’s full blog post on this subject.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Allow new ideas to be considered, regardless of whether they are your ideas.
In fact, give them attention especially when they come from someone else.

But don’t be fooled—those new ideas might still be bad ideas.

Dag had just offered me the assignment in Norway and I needed to discuss it with my wife immediately.   She had been a stay-at-home mom for several years, caring for our young son.  We had been discussing home-based business ideas and she had decided to launch a desktop publishing business.  She had a business plan, a marketing plan, and a training plan.  After borrowing some money, we identified the hardware and software she would need.  Everything was set and today was the day!

It was October 31—the morning of Halloween.  If you’ve ever met an American child, you probably know this is one of the most exciting days of the year.  Dressing up in costume coupled with an apparently endless supply of candy equals complete childhood heaven!  Our son was dressed up in his Peter Pan costume, complete with green tunic, green tights, and a cute little green hat.

After my meeting with Dag, I knew that I needed to talk with my wife before she headed to the computer store.  They had gone to the health club for a morning workout.  Since cell phones were futuristic gadgets (which means we didn’t have one), I did the logical thing—I called the health club and had her paged.

Based on her reaction when she got to the phone, I had discovered how to make my wife instantly panic—page her at the gym!

[Slightly panicked]  “Oh, no!  What’s wrong?!”
[Me]  “Nothing’s wrong.  Did you buy the computer stuff already?”
[A little more panicked]  “No, why?  What’s the matter?!”
[Me]   “Good.  Don’t go there—come meet me for lunch instead.”
[Still more panicked]  “WHY?  What happened?  Is everything OK?”
[Me]   “Everything’s fine—I just need you to come meet me for lunch.”

I know she didn’t really believe me and was certain that something terrible had happened (or was about to happen).  Filled with worry, she left the gym, loaded our son into the car, and drove toward my office.

We met at a pizza place a few blocks from the office.  We ordered a pizza, but I don’t think either of us paid any attention to what we were eating.  There was our son—running around the restaurant in his Peter Pan costume, charming everyone in the place.  [Or annoying the heck of them—we didn’t really pay any attention since we were engrossed in our conversation.]

Norway?  To live there?  For how long?  We’ve never even been there.  We don’t speak Norwegian—can we even learn Norwegian?  [Does anyone learn Norwegian?]

When would we leave?  What would we do with our house?  Our cars?  Our furniture?  How would we find a house there?  Or a car?  Could we afford it?

What about our son?  Are there English language schools there?  Would he make friends?  Would he learn Norwegian?

There were so many questions, but there was no question that it was exciting.  We were going to live in Europe!  It would be the start of an incredible adventure—one that would transform our lives and would also transform my career.

A few days later, we realized that we had never discussed whether to go.  We both just assumed we would.

A few days after that, we learned that my wife was pregnant, so our second child was born in Norway.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Embrace new opportunities.  But try to do it without making your loved ones panic.

I was really mad at Dag.  He was my boss and I was sure he was avoiding me, maybe even ignoring me.  I was ready to unload on him (verbally) the next time I saw him.  It was a good thing I didn’t.

I was working for Cimage Corporation, a software company in the Bay Area.  Much of the investment in Cimage had come from Norwegian investors and Dag, my boss who was from Norway, temporarily re-located to California.  I really loved working for Dag, and years later still consider him one of my key professional mentors.  At the time, though, I was just incredibly frustrated.

Things weren’t going so well at Cimage.  It was the end of October, and several months earlier the company had announced that our office would be closed and all of us were to be laid off.  Along with several other software engineers, I had been contracted to complete a project for a key customer.  We were employed through the end of the year and although there had been some rumors about further extensions, nothing had come through.  Dag had told me personally, several weeks earlier, that he was working on it and had asked me to be patient.

Time was running out.  I needed to support my family, so if I wasn’t extending my work at Cimage, I needed to be looking for something else.  I was hoping to continue working for Dag, but that seemed increasingly unlikely.  He had been traveling a lot, returning to the corporate headquarters in Michigan, and also spending some time back in Norway.

On Halloween morning, Dag was finally back in the office.  I was prepared to confront him and kept an eye on his office door, waiting for him to be free.  In the late morning he beat me to the punch and called me in to speak with him.  As I walked into his office and he closed the door, I decided I’d wait to see why he had called me in before I spilled out my frustrations.  I figured I could be patient for another few minutes.

After some brief small talk, Dag got straight to the point: “Daryl, how would you like to work for me in Norway?”  I was shocked and completely speechless!

I’ll save the story of talking with my wife about the possibility of moving to Norway— it deserves a post of its own.  For today, it’s enough to know that we accepted, and a little more than two months later, arrived in Oslo.

That conversation literally changed the course of my life and shaped a lot of my career.  I’m glad I decided to be patient, for just a few minutes more.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Wait before acting rashly—don’t jump to conclusions.  If you assume the worst, you’re likely to be wrong and might assume yourself right out of a golden opportunity.

Every Business Intelligence (BI) platform starts out being pretty useless because it has nothing inside.  It needs to be “filled up” with some content before it becomes valuable.  Let me provide a few analogies to explain what I mean.

Imagine that you just bought a new GPS unit (or SatNav, if you’re from Europe).  You know you’ll love it because of all the great features: it knows exactly where you are, it can talk to you, it can download traffic information, and it can calculate your speed (and direction of travel).

Now, imagine how frustrating it would be if your GPS unit didn’t come with any maps or location information.  While it can tell you where you are, it doesn’t have any way to tell you how to get to your destination and it doesn’t have any way for you to look up the address of a restaurant or hotel.  No one would sell an “empty” GPS device like that, because no one would buy it.

Let’s apply that same analogy to a slightly different device.  How many phone numbers do you have memorized?  If you’re like me, it’s far fewer than it used to be (and that’s not just because we’re getting old and forgetful either!).  Years ago, we all had to memorize the phone numbers we wanted to call (or resort to looking them up in cumbersome phone books, something that today’s teens have heard of but never actually used).

Telephone manufacturers simplified the process by adding memory and redial features to our phones that we all take for granted now.  If you have a smart phone, you can even synchronize with the contacts in your email system.  That “content” (the lists of phone numbers) makes the device much easier to use.

What does this have to do with business intelligence?  Actually, quite a lot – it turns out that similar issues exist in the realm of BI.

Lots of vendors sell business intelligence platforms.  The most successful and most extensive offerings come from the “Big 4” software vendors: IBM (after they acquired Cognos), Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP (after they acquired Business Objects).  There are some other key players, including MicroStrategy and open source vendors like Pentaho and JasperSoft, but most of the revenue (and, as a result, most of the industry focus) belongs to the Big 4.

Each BI platform, by default, comes with no content.  It doesn’t know where your data is or how best to present it.  It doesn’t know how to organize that data into Financials, Supply Chain, Payroll, Manufacturing, or similar subject areas that will benefit your business.  It doesn’t know how to connect the data in ways that are meaningful for you (like linking an invoice to a purchase order or an employee to a supervisor).  It’s like the GPS device with no maps or the telephone with no address book.

Of course, every BI platform comes with tools to add some content.  It has wizards to point to your database and automatically load details about all your tables (and even find some complicated things like primary keys and foreign keys that help connect those tables).  After running those wizards, you’ll have at least some content.  However, it’s kind of like having your GPS loaded with a bunch of streets.  It could connect them together, but it won’t know a freeway from a country lane, and it won’t know where Starbucks is, and it won’t know anything about speed limits or construction zones or gas stations, let alone the fastest or most direct route to your correct destination.

To make your BI platform work as smoothly as your GPS device (or your cell phone with speed dialing), you need some well-designed “content” that matches your business.  For example, a budget to actual report could tell you whether you’re spending too much or an on-hand inventory report might confirm that you can fulfill a big order that just came in.

Not surprisingly, that custom “content” represents a pretty big market of its own.  The industry experts call it “BI Applications” and we’ll explore that in a future post.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Your BI tool isn’t very useful if it has nothing in it.  You need to fill it up with some content that will help you run your business.

Lots of my posts here will be about the Business Intelligence (BI) industry.  That’s not surprising, since I’ve worked for BI reporting company Noetix for more than 9 years, so my recent professional focus has been all about BI.  I’ve studied the industry, watched our competitors, worked with our partners, and (of course) paid careful attention to our own customers.

The BI sector of the software industry is notorious for failed projects and dissatisfied customers.  That reputation closely matches the reputation that the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SFA (Sales Force Automation) sectors experienced 5 or 10 years ago.  In fact, for many people, that impression persists, even today. [Hmmmm, before I joined Noetix, I was VP of Engineering for a CRM software company.  I wonder what that says about me?]

Obviously, many BI projects (and CRM projects) are successful, but quite a few are failures.  Why?  There are, of course, many different reasons that BI projects (or CRM projects) haven’t been successful.  It would be foolish to try to generalize with a blanket “here’s why” explanation, however there are some common mistakes that many failed projects share.

When organizations face challenges, technology solutions are appealing.  [That’s good for me – I’ve spent my whole career working for companies that build those solutions]  It’s enticing for an organization to just write a check, acquire some software (and, probably, hardware), set it all up, and wait for magical results to happen.  It doesn’t work that way, of course.  Solving difficult problems usually requires organizational focus, careful planning, process change, and managerial skill.

In the late ‘90s, CRM systems were positioned as somewhat magical.  Vendors (especially industry leader Siebel Systems) presented their software as out-of-the-box solutions that would provide customers with immediate benefits.  “Get a single view of your customers, including what they’ve bought, what they might buy, who the contacts are, what support issues they’ve reported, and more,” the vendors promised.  It sounded wonderful and many customers immediately jumped at the chance to implement these new offerings.

In order for the new systems to succeed, the company needed to make some core business changes.  Sales needed to enter the correct information and keep it up to date.  Marketing needed to track (and measure) their campaigns and initiatives.  Everyone in the company needed to share a common “customer” and make sure the data entered was consistent across the board.  So, if one department entered Acme Corporation and another entered Acme Corp and yet another knew them as ACME International, it would appear that there were 3 different companies in the system, rather than just one.

There were many other changes that these systems demanded as well, but for many CRM customers, the importance of those business process changes wasn’t recognized, so the changes didn’t happen.  As a result, the new (and often very expensive) CRM systems failed and the customer was left with an empty bank account and little to show for it.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Don’t expect a new technology to solve a major problem by itself.

Often, process changes (and attitude changes) are as important (or maybe even more important) as new technology.

The CEO of business software maker NetSuite made news this week when, in an interview in London, he said “I think in 10 years we’ll be bigger than SAP.”   Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite, cited the growth of software-as-a-service, the foundation of NetSuite’s offering, as the driving force behind his optimism.

I’ve got nothing against Zach Nelson or NetSuite.  In fact, I agree that he should be optimistic for their future outlook and that the company will continue to succeed against SAP (and Oracle and other big ERP vendors).  They’re growing, they have good customer success stories, and they’re riding a technology wave that’s really hot.

But, “bigger than SAP” – that’s just ridiculous.  SAP is more than 80 times bigger than NetSuite.

NetSuite’s 2009 revenue was $166.5 million, up 9% from 2008.

SAP’s 2009 revenue was $13.63 billion, down 9% from 2008.

Clearly, NetSuite is doing well.  They’re growing at a steady rate, in a troubled economy.  Just as clearly, SAP is struggling and the challenges they face are well-documented.

Let’s make some outrageous projections to see how NetSuite might be “bigger than SAP” in a decade.  If SAP revenue declines by 10% every year for 10 years, it would be about $4.7 billion.  [Reality check: this could never happen.  If it DID happen, don’t you think SAP would do something to reverse that trend somewhere along the way during that decade?]

Here’s a graph that shows some very optimistic growth possibilities for NetSuite, compared to that unrealistic precipitous decline for SAP:

Why make outrageous claims that can never be supported by facts?  NetSuite is doing very well and they deserve a lot of positive attention.  Don’t screw it up by making claims that are just ridiculous.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Don’t make baseless claims.   They make you look silly.

I’m guessing that many of you are not familiar with data visualization expert Stephen Few.  However, you probably do know who Martin Tyler and Ian Darke are (even if you forget their names before the end of the year). Stephen Few has one thing in common with the other two, and I admire them all for the same reason: they aren’t afraid to tell the truth.

Martin Tyler and Ian Darke are English football commentators (that’s soccer for us Americans).  They were hired by ABC / ESPN to broadcast the 2010 World Cup from South Africa.  Millions of Americans (and others around the world) were thrilled and captivated by Darke’s breathless call of Landon Donovan’s late goal against Algeria that moved the U.S. team on to the next round.

Throughout the World Cup (and, I’m sure, in their regular broadcasts of the English Premier League), these announcers are honest and direct in their assessment of the players and the officials.  After a disputed call in the game between Slovenia and the U.S., Darke called it “one of the stupidest decisions I’ve ever seen.”  Tyler described a disastrous mistake by the English goalkeeper as “one of the softest goals you’ll ever see at this level of football.  It doesn’t often happen in schoolboy play.”  Other memorable quotes from commentators throughout the tournament included “Mexico is right to be indignant – a huge injustice” and “No need for that – very ridiculous.”

Stephen Few operates in a completely different arena.  Data visualization is the science of communicating information clearly and effectively through graphical means.  He emphasizes clarity and simplicity.  In fact, the home page of his company website, Perceptual Edge, includes scholarly quotes about simplicity from Henry David Thoreau, Leonardo da Vinci, and English mathematician Alfred North Whitehead.

Few comments frequently on charts, graphs, and dashboards presented by the media, advertisers, and by Business Intelligence (BI) vendors.  In those comments, he pulls no punches.  When he thinks something is bad (which happens a lot), he says it’s bad.  More importantly, he supports his scorn with a detailed critique describing exactly why it’s ineffective and how it could be improved.  As an added bonus, he writes clearly, filling his detailed explanations with well-placed sarcasm.  [I have to admit - I’m a huge fan of well-placed sarcasm!]

Quotes from Few on his firm’s website are just as direct as those from the English football commentators:

• “How can a vendor that claims to understand data and presumes to teach people best practices in its use know so little? Oracle, you should be embarrassed.”
• “I don’t blame MicroStrategy’s customers. They’re working within the constraints of the tool and emulating impoverished examples, which is probably all they’ve ever seen. I mostly blame the folks at MicroStrategy, who should know better.”
• “SAP BusinessObjects and most other Big BI companies haven’t taken the time to understand data sense-making in general, data visualization in particular, or even the real needs of their customers.”

Too often, broadcasters and commentators share a timid streak with analysts and consultants. They’re reluctant to criticize anyone.  Maybe they fear legal reprisals.  Maybe they’re hesitant to offend a potential future client.  Maybe they’re too closely tied to the people or subjects they’re commenting on.  Maybe it’s a combination of all of those.  In any case, it’s a shame.  The very experts we’d like to rely on for truth don’t deliver—instead they give us sugar-coated platitudes.

In contrast, Stephen Few, Martin Tyler, and Ian Darke provide refreshing honesty and frankness.  I wish there were more like them.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Don’t be wishy-washy—tell the truth.