In the last few years, IT organizations that I have been working with are looking for integrated solutions around business service management, performance management and infrastructure management that allow them to quickly understand service quality and how the supporting IT is contributing to that quality.

The acquisition of NetQoS by CA does make a lot of sense. It allows CA to fill in a gap in the areas where they can understand how IT is performing. But does it get them to that complete solution? I’m not so sure.

The problem they have is that their successful Wily business unit is that - separate. This means that they have a fragmented solution, an application focused solution in Wily and a more infrastructure and network oriented solution in the Spectrum / NetQoS assets. Is this what customers are looking to buy?

This is of course not to take away from the success that CA have experienced with their Intrascope product. They quickly became a market segment leader when this technology was new and technically savvy buyers needed something - and few other vendors had a solution. But now what they have is not really differentiated a great deal. There are other solutions in the market place that can offer similar functionality and at a lower cost.

This means to continue their leadership position, CA need to adapt and change their strategy. The separate business unit made sense at the time, but my view is that they will start seeing erosion in their market share (if they are not already) as other vendors can provide solutions that are either cheaper as a point product technology buy, or a more strategic offering that focuses on the service rather than one part of the technology.

The NetQoS acquisition should be the catalyst to combine the Wily business unit with the Spectrum and NetQoS technologies.

The hero culture runs deep in most IT departments.   In many places where I have worked, the staff who get the most kudos are the ones who need to pull the all-nighter to make things work, or have to be involved in everything for it to be successful.

while there is always room for people who go above and beyond the minimum to get things done, ultimately the hero mentality is a big reason why so many IT departments are stuck in a reactive mode, constantly fighting fires then slapping each other on the back for a job well done.

The real hero is the employee who through proper planning doesn't need to do the all nighter.   Another hero is the employee who documents his/her work and makes it available to everyone (e.g. via a wiki) so they don't need to be available for anything in their area to function.  

Instead of rewarding the hero, IT management need to examine why it was required in the first place.   Were processes followed?  (sloppy change management is a big culprit here).   Is adequate documentation available on the key IT systems?   Was the right level of planning done?  Were estimates correct?   Was the outcome as expected.

The real hero can answer yes to all of these questions.   The so called hero answers no, but gets rewarded because it worked out in the end.  

Who are your real heroes?

Tivoli is responsible for many things.   The eradication of the word 'framework' from any other vendor's marketing;   Most likely the destroyer of more marriages than adultery or alcohol; the impetus of more companies starting up and claiming to do Event Management right.   But what is ironic is now that they finally have a technology that scales and works,  it would appear that they are finally reaping the rewards of all those half implemented solutions, user frustration and reputation.

Given that the Micromuse technology was supposed to address all those shortcomings, it seems that the company has somehow managed to turn this one positive into the final straw that breaks the camels back.   While I don't have any hard numbers to back it up, I've seen more churn in Tivoli sites over the last two years than ever before - and the competitive landscape is probably somewhat reduced since IBM purchased Micromuse.

These days when I am out working at various customer sites, more and more I only see Tivoli in wall to wall IBM shops.  When I talk to people evaluating tools in this area, its a rare thing for me to see Tivoli on the short list.   How things have changed.

Given that it would appear that (at least for the customers I've spoken to) the upgrade is pretty much a rip and replace, its provided the driver to seek alternatives from other vendors - while the new solution is so much better - the memory remains.   And boy are the other vendors capitalizing.    They range from straight replacements from the usual suspects (HP, BMC etc), smaller players like Nimsoft, or even solutions that are not traditionally event management but take other approaches like Compuware.

Like a wounded animal the other vendors are out for the kill too.    Vendors like Nimsoft are crowing about recent wins vs Tivoli on their blogs, HP are basically doing the same but in a more tactful way, and the list goes on.

Of course IBM Tivoli are not the only vendor to make these mistakes.   HP are having the same problems with their service desk as are BMC.     Its amazing how the big vendors seem to completely neglect a good migration strategy as part of making their customer successful.

Where next for Tivoli?  Will they turn into simply the software arm for Global Services and IBM shops?  It remains to be seen.   My prediction is that the future is not bright for Tivoli.    The sharks smell the blood.

Ebay finally announced the part sale of skype.  It was always rather curious why they bought it in the first place.   The announced reason around how there would be key synergies between their auction business and Skype seemed rather far fetched - isn't the whole point of ebay to buy and sell something quickly and easily over the internet without needing to pick up the phone?

While there is still a lot of speculation around how the new owners will extract profit from the spectacularly popular service, there are a few aspects that could be interesting to explore further.

This opportunity would be a single integrated telephony suite that breaks down barriers between land lines, mobile telephones, fax machines, instant messaging, video conferencing and so on.   With people increasingly mobile, the concept of having all these separate numbers, and different charges depending on where they are physically located seems rather old fashioned.   All the user needs is a data service whereever he/she is and he/she is instantly connected.   The phone companies right now are trying to protect their monopoly - for example the decision made in the USA to block skype on the iphone through the AT&T network, but this can only last for so long.

The future is not that far away, if the phone company monopolies can be broken.  The question is if Skype will be the one to do it and reap the rewards.