Comments on: Out With The Old…Rethinking Outdated Intranet Portal Models Part I – Introduction

By: shobankr

shobankr — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:04:05 +0000

@seanrnicholson Thanks let me have a look at it

By: seanrnicholson

seanrnicholson — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:34:41 +0000

RT @shobankr: RE: Intranet pricing. Many factors that go into the answer. See this post & part 2 for thoughts http://www.intranetexperience.com/ourblo...

By: Out With The Old…Rethinking Outdated Intranet Portal Models Part II – Next Generation Portal Platforms | Intranet Experience Blog

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:53:59 +0000

[...] the first article in this series on rethinking the old model of Intranet portals, I covered the basics of why the old [...]

By: Sean R. Nicholson

Sean R. Nicholson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:08:42 +0000

Great question, Michael! Since technology changes to frequently, the best we can do is make solid decisions using the best datapoints and research available. The key, though, is to revisit the technology periodically to validate that it’s meeting the organizations needs and is returning the investment that was made. As new technologies come to market, we have to be willing to review their value and make changes if necessary. Unfortunately, these heavy investments in portals have made it difficult for some to let go of that initial investment in lieu of something better and cheaper. Hopefully, the social media explosion and shift in portal platforms and licensing options is making that review easier, since the ROI on change in platform can be realized relatively quickly.

Thanks for the great comment!

–Sean

By: Michael O'Connor

Michael O'Connor — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:53:07 +0000

Sean

Interesting article. So much has changed in the intranet/portal world in the last 5 years – both in terms of technology and the demands of users. My question is around the implications of this on strategy. Obviously one of the key factors in determining technology solution should be the functionality required both in the immediate future and over time. How can we then chose a technology platform with confidence that it will continue to meet the business needs even in 3 years time?

By: Sean R. Nicholson

Sean R. Nicholson — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:52:50 +0000

I’m with you, David, and I agree that support is another major risk that has kept some companies from jumping on the open source bandwagon. Companies like Novell, JBoss, and Sun have offered subscription support options for some open source platforms for a while now, but some orgs are hesitant to give up that security blanket offered by commercial, off-the-shelf software (COTS). The closer these subscription services get to mirroring those offered by COTS vendors, the easier it will be to make the shift.

Thanks for the great comment! Keep em coming!

–Sean

By: David Taylor

David Taylor — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:18:18 +0000

Sean,

I would argue that its less about the possibility of being sued, and more about the fact that most open source projects (I say most, not all) don’t have a unified support structure for a user to call into to get assistance. Most of the time its limited to forums and emails. This works fine for initial implementation, but in a ‘system down’ type scenario, you want to be able to pickup the phone and get someone right away to start solving the solution. Since Open Source often means no-charge, the project doesn’t have the ability to provide that kind of 1on1 support.

While open source might just be the right answer for the problem in how it solves it, disaster recovery and outage resolution drive business decisions moreso then cost to implement and maintain.

Now I am a user of open source, don’t get me wrong, just pointing out where I’ve seen the decisions come from in my experience.

By: Sean R. Nicholson

Sean R. Nicholson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:42:36 +0000

Stacy,

Your point on cultural change an excellent one! Part of the “out with the old” has to be giving up the old mentality of purchasing perpetual licenses, loads of hardware, and staffing to support both. Executives focused on protecting their silos will naturally resist with arguments like “we don’t need social media inside the firewall to waste or employees time” or “the conversion costs alone would make the transition cost prohibitive”. Trust me, I’ve heard them all. The reality is that executives, when faced with the raw ROI numbers of a migration to a modern platform, rarely have a leg to stand on. The key is to have clear, defined cost reductions that will improve processes. More to come on this cultural shift!

With respect to Open Source, traditionally it has been all about risk and fear of being involved in or impacted by lawsuits. Big companies tend to avoid the risk associated with Open Source because they don’t want to replace technologies if a suit is filed. I see that trend changing, even in the face of big suits like SCO/IBM and the Microsoft vs. TomTom case (which was settled, not decided). Executives are realizing that the cost of operating Open Source is so much cheaper, it’s worth the risk to cut costs in these touch economic times.

Both situations pretty much lead us to the fact that cash is king right now and any corporate citizen who can show a significant reduction in costs and improvement in business processes could be a corporate hero

More to come on both topics, thanks for the great comment!

–Sean

By: Stacy Wilson

Stacy Wilson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:39:42 +0000

Sean, all good points. Here’s one I’d love to get your take on. Even in the face of significant savings, why is it so many senior execs won’t make a change because of their perceived loss of face for the previous huge investment. We keep running into this. The client needs to make a change to get better performance, functionality and lower cost. But the powerful won’t pull the trigger because they think they’ll be seen as having made a mistake with the earlier system. Everything evolves, right?

Also, love to see you address why so many large organizations don’t even want to talk about open source.