Can Systems Be Made Resilient?

I recently read an article about Google’s new self-driving car, and I was intrigued by a reference to the requirement that the computer hardware and software running the car be completely resistant to failure. In so many words, a “blue screen of death” while in motion would probably lead to a deadly blue screen of death.

I believe hardware and software can be made 100% resilient to failure, so why, as infrastructure professionals, do we never witness a truly resilient system?

Well, we do. A few devices with resilient hardware and software systems are:

• Apollo 11
  
  
• My car
  


• TiVo systems (note, I did not say Comcast or FiOS DVRs)
  


• Calculators
  
  

When something works well, we should take the time to examine how to replicate the processes leading to a better deliverable. Everything we do should include “lesson learned,” and every lesson learned should result in a project to make things better. Problems will diminish and our focus will shift to developing value-added business processes, rather than fixing what is broken.

In an article called “The Infrastructure Economics Breakthrough,” in this month’s Wall Street & Technology, Howard Rubin posits that infrastructure professionals have yet to deliver high quality infrastructure for less money. The panacea of “scale” we all talk about has not been attained and we [infrastructure folks] prevent investment in business deliverables that could drive higher profits.

Maybe one of the reasons we can’t optimize the infrastructure is that we are too busy fixing the hardware and software designed to give us an optimized infrastructure. When was the last time you implemented something that didn’t require a fix, patch, or an “enhancement” to get it to work correctly? We all know not to implement a “zero point release” of a product. We will let someone else shake out the bugs, and only then will we consider planning for an implementation. That doesn’t sound productive, and you know someone is going through the pain of being the early adopter.

I have a solution. Let’s ask Sam Palmisano, Larry Ellison, Eric Schmidt, Steve Ballmer, and other hardware/software CEO’s to drive cars with the hardware and software at the same level of quality at which they release their products. I bet they would think twice, and maybe we would see an improved focus on resilient systems.

Technology and Toasters

My wife and I frequently talk about technology. I love it, she hates it. WHY? I think that the pace of change has been stunning over the last two decade and the new devices that are available continue to amaze me. (I love my toys)

I recall getting a new PC that was 486 DX4 with a 20 meg hard drive….I was the baddest dude on my street with the hottest machine, ( amongst me and my geek friends)—- Pathetic.

What that 486 did teach me was how to load all my own software, configure DLL’s, and triage all of the obnoxious cryptic Microsoft error/warning messages. Before I had my 486, I was living large with a 286 but no Windows only DOS. By growing up with DOS, I was forced to gain an understanding of how those infuriating boxes worked. I also managed a helpdesk and software installation. Good training for knowing how the x86 architecture operated.

On the opposite, my wife is a consumer. Her background was in the insurance industry and legal profession. Her expectation is that when she presses the button she is delivered a good or service. That is, a screen appears that is useful and does something she wants. The analogy we use is that her PC should be like a toaster. She hits the button and it delivers something warm, tasty and useful. It meets her needs. He issue is that she is constantly required to know things that the operator of toaster wouldn’t be expect to know. For example, to install software, do you need a CD, is it a flash memory or do you have to go to a website. YUK, for a toaster, you insert the bread hit the button- BAM you get toast.

There is a bewildering array of things that kids can do the family PC that leaves us wondering….how did they get the home screen to be size 40 pt font? Again, it requires knowing how to navigate and get things back to a ‘normal state’. For the toaster, you turn one knob lighter or darker- simple. Why can’t the PC be more like that?

AH HA you say, you should get a MAC… Why should I. Granted they look cool, work cool and are very stylish, BUT, everything we have and do is PC based. It would require a paradigm shift in the house for all users. PLUS, PCs have been commoditized. There is great competition in PC architecture that continues to drive innovation, improve capability and reduce cost. The same can’t be said for Apple. They have and continue to try and keep a stranglehold on their franchise. We’ll see how long that lasts. Look at the Iphone. Very cool but the competition is really heating up.

So, what is the point of this rant? PC’s have a long way to go to be user friendly. What I see is convergence: the ease of use of Apple’s interfaces and set up, the commoditized pricing, and continual delivery of faster, smaller, and more efficient. Hopefully, PC’s will become more like toasters. Push the button and it will deliver simply every time.

This post was prepared by John Manning, Associate Partner at Harvard Partners.
He can be reached at john.manning@harvardpartners.com

Change

When you think of a piece of “computer paper,” what do you envision?

Do you think of a white “letter-sized” piece of paper sans perforations? Or do you think of an 11”x14 7/8” (or 8.5”x11 7/8”) “greenbar” paper, with sprocket perforations on either side of the paper? If you remember greenbar, you must be over 40!

Greenbar, paper with wide green (or blue) “bars”.

The bars helped the reader to follow the lines of text on wide printouts and reports. The bars were 1/2 inch wide which is 3 lines at 6 lines per inch or 4 lines at 8 lines per inch. Normally 132 characters would be printed across the width of the page at 10 characters per inch.

There was a whole industry around computer printouts. There were fiberboard covers, with neat nylon posts to hold the paper. These covers would then “hang” in special computer filing cabinets.

In the mid 80s, the shift to the current “standard” began. I was working for an office products company, and while we were predicting the paperless society, the company invented ion deposition printed to compete with laser or ink jet printing.

We were very excited when we began the shift from the old style printouts to the new. The first day, we were handing printouts to our users fully prepared for accolades. While most embraced the change, there was an accounting supervisor who quickly threw water on our enthusiasm. “I have no place to store these printouts.” Working for an office products company making 3 hole binders, I was rather taken aback by the comment. But, but, but…..

Over time, we overcame the objection, although we did for a long time print “greybars” on the paper.

We made many mistakes in our rush to be good corporate citizens all coming down to good change process.

We should have:

• “tested” the format change more.
  
  
  
  • - At first, we offered “3 hole punched” paper, and “plain.” We eventually switched to just 3 hole punched.
  
  
  • Greenbar was also a continuous sheet, where the new format is loose sheets. This required us to come up with a “packaging” solution.
  
  
  
  
• Communicated to our users more. Yes, we let them know it was coming. In hindsight, we could have done more…such as sending out sample reports, letting them have time to buy some 3 hole binders


• Switched formats at year end, or at least end of quarter. While minor, it would have eased some of the storage issues.

Where else are we having changes in the industry?

When greenbar was popular:

• There was no PC.


• Cell phones were the size of briefcases.


• “Dial up” was over an “acoustic coupler.” (In hindsight, it’s amazing an acoustic coupler ever worked.)


• Faxes were all printed on thermal paper. Leave the thermal paper by a window, and the fax went away!


• Flat panel displays have largely replaced the “tubes” even though “tubes” are less costly to acquire


• Many companies had one scanner, in an engineering or graphics area. Now, scanners are in many desktop printers and all fax machines (fax scanner may not have color – yet)

So what are the new technology innovations we still need to communicate and prepare our users to learn and embrace? Let me know.

By the way, we’re still going to be paperless. Someday.

Can Form Meet Function – What to do with an iPad

I had dinner with a friend, last night, and he was very excited to show me his iPad. I told him we had purchased one a while ago but still couldn’t determine a good, practical use for it. He said he does a lot with it and proceeded to show me a slide show from a recent trip. While the slides were interesting, I continue to come back to the question of how to use the iPad in the corporate environment.

 At a recent Desktop Strategy seminar we held in Boston for six leading financial services institutions; we surveyed the group as to their plans for the iPad within their organization. Everyone agreed the iPad was going to be a great “consumption” device for senior managers. They were excited about replacing laptops with iPads for this group of users.

Having never heard of a consumption device, I probed and discovered many senior executives simply spend their time reading reports and emails. The output of this process is short emails in response to what they have reviewed. Applications used by this group are all web-based and not data entry intensive.

I can easily see the iPad used as a consumption device. I can also see a new breed of application written to facilitate using the iPad in this capacity. Think about Facebook and the ability to click on a thumbs-up to indicate you like something. Highly productive and delivers a message that is “pithy and succinct.” Besides a consumption device, maybe the iPad becomes an annotation device.

With these two functions, is it possible the iPad, with some well designed applications, could reduce the glut of email we receive every day? Granted, it would simply transfer to other applications, but at least it would get it out of our mailboxes. If this can be done then the “killer app” might be the one that gets the documents and comments out of email.

As time goes by, and I speak to more people, a new vision of the iPad is beginning to emerge. Stay tuned as I continue my quest for the best use the iPad (and no, it’s not the level application).

How to be a Thought Leader in IT

Steve Sweeney, of Affinity, reached out after reading a thought leadership thought leadership blog and suggested a Curriculotta post, “How to be a Thought Leader in IT?”

The original blog post posits:

According to Wikipedia, a thought leader is a futurist or person who is recognized for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights

How does this apply to the real world? I am still thinking on this, but here are my early reflections:

• You need to be original in your thinking.

• You must have enough edge to force people to have an opinion.

• You must address issues that broaden everyone’s horizon.

• You must act as a gate-keeper that finds and share relevant information.

• You need to build a following that buy into and help spread your ideas.

Of course, all these elements apply in the IT realm.

A thought leader in IT needs to:

• Be knowledgeable in the business and technology. Understanding business is vital, and technology important. Understanding the technology application in the business setting is where the value is provided.
  
• Understand trends. This is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of the IT professionals role.
  
  It’s important to understand the business trends. I first met the late Michael Hammer while working in manufacturing. He was talking broadly about business process reengineerging, then in the nascent stages. His thought was if manufacturers where keeping track of retail level transactions, waste could be removed. Years (truthfully, decades) later, Dr. Hammer was using the same slides in a presentation on financial services Straight Through Processing (STP). After his talk, I asked him privately about his reuse. He smiled, and said some industries take longer than others…
  
  While arguably a simple comment, the thing about Hammer is he had a way of capturing trends in a simplistic way.
  
  Technology trends are also an obvious area for focus, and where a technologist often must make value judgments around technologies to back, and which players will be around. Once proud Massachusetts companies like Wang, Prime and Digital have given way (or been acquired) by the HP, Dell, or IBM.
  
  There are lots of companies making disk drives. In enterprise data centers EMC and Network Appliance are often found…although HDS, Compellent and 3Par have excellent products.
  
  Getting a sixth sense for the technologies taking off beyond the niche is the key. There are lots of great niche products available…understanding the ones with legs and financial support are differentiators.
  
  There are many ways to get aware of trends. Watch larger companies in your industry or others for where they are focusing. You can do this by reading publications, attending conferences or Society for Information Management meetings, or working with consultants.
  
  Keep an eye on where leading colleges and universities are researching.
  

  
  Don’t network with just the same groups. Keep an insatiable curiosity for the new, and applicability in your environment.
  

• Try something. In my mind, every IT shop, regardless of size, can fund a single skunk works effort. Take some of your best and the brightest people, and have them work on a “pilot” project determining the feasibility and value of some new thing.
  
  Silicon Valley started in a garage. The IBM PC was invented far from stodgy New York…in Boca Raton, Florida.
  

  While you won’t be creating a PC or launching an industry, you may be doing some leading edge work on worker mobility, desktop (specifically PC) video conferencing, behavioral intrusion prevention, or the like. Here, fund something you think has business applicability, with a 3-6 month deliverable timeframe, where “rough” is acceptable. You want to see a proof of concept, not a fully functioning enterprise ready deployment. That can come AFTER seeing the proof of concept.
  

  By the way, there is no reason why every person can’t do a little skunk works effort. The office superstore Staples original website was developed by three guys (a contract/commercial IT guy, a PC/networking guy, and an ops manager) using a (now defunct) outside firm interested in helping companies get on the web. The entire process was “hosted” external to Staples corporate as a way to eliminate technical risk (although the marketing people were not pleased with Staples’ skunk works on-ramp to the information super highway!)
  

• Partner with a local college or university – Interns are a great way to get work accomplished with some of the best and brightest. And as I like to say, they are naïve enough to do just about anything! Please respect interns will need management/leadership time (most corporate cultures are very foreign and “enterprise quality” is not in most curriculums.)
  

  One company, Fidelity Investments, had the Systems Associates Program (poorly abbreviated SAP) as a way to onboard interns. Interns would complete a 2 year assignment, made up of four 6 month rotations. At the end of two years, promising SAPs would often have the opportunity for permanent placement.
  

  These types of programs tie you closely to where the research and thought leadership often originates.
  

• Let the group work in teams – IT can often be an introverted function. IT is often made up of introverts, or geeks. When presented with a challenge, often the IT person starts working the effort alone. While useful for initial thought organization (especially for the more introverted), getting teams together will often generate an exponential increase in the number of ideas and innovation.
  
  

• Expect and accept failure as a part of a learning process – in a pilot group environment failure is contained, and is learning.
  
• Talk the successes up! Whether something you learn at a conference, invent on your own, develop in a skunk works effort….let others know what is working in industry. It can be your industry or others, it’s the applicability to your business that’s key.
  

Thoughtful Transition Management..the neglected art.

I find it thoroughly amazing many technology organizations still seem to forget or neglect the the most fundamental aspects of transitioning technology products into the hands of their customers.  I’m not referring to the technology bits and bytes about how to move code into production or fire up a new storage device, I’m talking about the act of thoroughly setting user expectations, delivering just the right about information to them and lastly, preparing the support staff to provide great service.

Often, there is a HUGE gap in a firm between the highly intelligent technologists (application coders, database admins, telephone/voicemail engineers) and the end users.  The result is often a good product poorly received—or significantly less well received than it could have been if someone had just taken the time to think through all aspects of delivering it into the hands of a user.  I think this typically happens when senior management’s concern has shifted too far toward technology or cost cutting and away from the business humans at the other end of the keyboard.

The best organizations bridge this gap by involving their support staff in the delivery of new technology.  They don’t just tell them about what is happening (some don’t even do that), they educate them on both the business opportunity and solution.  When techies and their management truly consider their customers they know it makes sense to empower support staff with knowledge and tools allowing them to provide great service.  They recognize support groups often know the customers better than anyone and leverage that relationship to communicate salient points about what is coming down the road.  Whenever possible, they employ support staff to develop and deliver training materials and execute desk-side transition steps when they are necessary.  How better to prepare and educate a helpdesk for a new product than to involve them in the deployment and training?  For organizations with a high rate of technology churn, constant application changes or high touch, business-urgent users this delivery process is best managed by a dedicated person or team focusing on consistency and congruity of each transition step across projects.

I get it that ITIL processes cover this topic but only to a degree.  I believe there is a certain common sense and empathy that no framework can meaningfully outline.  Technology organizations do well when they thoughtfully consider exactly what the end user will experience with technology change and engage the support organizations early in the project.  This attention to detail fundamentally matters and is absolutely a service differentiator.  For me, doing this is a “Duh.”

This post was prepared by Charles Kling, Associate Partner at Harvard Partners.

He can be reached at charles.kling@harvardpartners.com

Stretching the Data Center

Data centers are the un-sung heroes of the IT world.

A number of companies pushed off addressing facilities limitations during 2008 & 2009 for budgetary reasons. Now, some facilities are reaching their design limits.

When data centers are designed, the basic questions are how large (square footage), how many watts/square foot (driving power and cooling) and what Tier (defined by organizations like the Uptime Institute and ANSI/TIA 942) see vastly simplified table:

When these design limits are reached, large infrastructure expenditures or cloud-sourcing may be indicated. The resourceful data center manager needs to look at short and long term strategies and alternatives.

One alternative is raising the temperature of the data center. While counterintuitive, today’s equipment can operate at significantly higher temperatures. The ANSI/TIA standard calls for air intake temperature as high as 81 degrees F.

Hot aisle/cold aisle is a key way to maximize efficiency. The cold aisle is maintained at 81, and the hot aisle is, well, hot. Temperatures over 100 degrees F are acceptable.

While not recommended, we know of two companies where the server racks were “spun” 180 degrees with the IT equipment running. Professional millrights were used, and they expertly raised racks, did the spin, and replaced all while a data center technician kept strain off cables. Obviously an extreme approach!

Hot Aisle/Cold aisle containment is also an option. There are elaborate systems for containment, and simpler systems (using the area above the drop ceiling as a return air plenum.

Raised (access) floor systems used for cooling should have all penetrations closed when not used for cooling, and all racks should have blanking systems in place.

http://upsitetechnologies.com/ and http://www.snaketray.com/snaketray_airflowsolutions.html are typical companies offering solutions in this space.

When spot cooling is needed, there are above rack cooling options, and fan options. Here’s one we’ve seen effectively cool a 200 WSF load in a designed 50 WSF data center

From http://www.adaptivcool.com/

We recently were in a facility where the temperature was set to 60 degrees to provide “spot” cooling for an individual rack. This is a very expensive approach for spot cooling.

Another options used to address simple hot spots is increasing the speed on air handlers. The newest air handlers are variable speed. On some older systems, a change in the fan speed may be sufficient to address the air flow needs.

Other companies are taking an all together different approach. By using rack mounted blade servers and a virtualized environment, the overall power and space used in a data center can actually be reduced! Here’s a case where a technology refresh may be the smarter option than a facilities investment.

Every company has unique challenges and one short post cannot address every alternative. The smart data center manager takes the time to understand the root cause of their issues, and through a careful, thoughtful, measured approach can make changes extending the effective lifespan of the data center. And always consult others including MEP engineering firms or strategic IT consulting firms for best practices in your specific environment.
 

Ode to My BlackBerry

I just received my new Motorola Droid X from Verizon and I love it.

As a BlackBerry user, it was hard parting with my 8800. I was a very early BlackBerry adopter having acquired 50 BlackBerry 950’s for my company in 1997.

The BlackBerry 950 was a remarkable device. I already carried a mobile phone and a Motorola pager, but the BlackBerry gave me real-time email, calendar, and contacts anywhere, anytime. It’s form factor was smaller than my pager, it had a full keyboard (with keys spaced apart), and this crazy thumbwheel. The most important attributes were the end-to-end encryption, 2 to 3 weeks battery life (with 1 AA battery), and its reliability. In my opinion, Research In Motion (RIM) got it right.

Having managed an IT organization in an investment management firm, I was fortunate to have met Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis (co-CEOs of RIM) a number of times. I remember them talking about focusing on what was really important to people, reliability, security, and battery life. RIM wrote high performance software that ran in DOS on an 80386 processor. We couldn’t understand how they did it (the 80386 could only be found in the Boston Computer Museum, at that time).

Jim and Mike didn’t see the need for a touch and color screen (like the PalmPilot) just for sending and receiving email. Their focus was on building the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and allowing us to no longer need client software on the desktop to receive Exchange-based emails. As a corporate IT person, this made my life much easier. Imagine that, a hardware/software vendor making things easier for IT.

Jim and Mike listened to customers, and taught us to do the same. We learned we didn’t need to engineer solutions to meet every need. We could focus on what was really important and do it right. The BlackBerry was an example of how to build something satisfying the needs of the user and meeting the requirements of an IT organization (Steve Jobs, take notice). It made IT staff look like heroes.

I remember 9/11 when we couldn’t reach anyone in NYC (we were in Boston). Landlines and cellular phones were at capacity and you couldn’t get a call through. BlackBerry’s ran on the Mobitex network which, surprisingly, was still running throughout New York City. It was the lifeline for many who were stranded and needed to let people know they were all right.

So, why am I retiring my BlackBerry 8830? Unfortunately the device just couldn’t keep up with everything it was trying to do. Almost daily, the device would freeze after a phone call. Internet connectivity was sketchy, at best, and very slow when it was working. Battery life was down to about 1 day (less, if my FaceBook app was running), and HTML emails didn’t work very well. Current BlackBerrys try to be everything to everyone. Unfortunately, at the cost of less reliability, no battery life, and slow performance.

As I bid a fond farewell to my BlackBerry, I wanted to thank Jim and Mike. They architected things like security into their framework and made that one less thing I needed to worry about. They developed one of the most efficient hardware and software solutions I have ever seen. Finally, they taught me to be a better IT person by listening to my users and applying what I heard into a focused and robust solution.

Is the Pandemic a bust like Y2K?

Is the Pandemic a bust like Y2K? A real problem that didn’t happen?

Over the last year we have been inundated with messages about the Swine Flu, H5N1. One needs to be vaccinated, one needs to be prepared. Is your family ready, is your business ready? What will you do if the flu strikes? What will you do if you can’t work, infrastructure breaks down? Hmm? What will you do?

Sounds like a bad insurance ad. Well, last year’s flu season has come and gone….and by gosh, the world didn’t come to an end and there were no Monty Python-like scenes of bodies in the streets with shouts of bring out your dead. OK, so I exaggerate but only a little. To listen or read the public health information, the picture painted was dire. Many of us got vaccinated or at least got our children vaccinated.

Thoughts of the Bird Flu or Swine Flu and Pandemic motivated many to action. On the positive side, families got vaccinations, schools and businesses worked to educate and improve health practices. What practices? Like teaching kids to sneeze into their elbow and not sometimes catch it in a little hand. Same for adults. Washing hands thoroughly every time you even walk by a bathroom….and use soap (for the kids of course)

Also, the sale of hand sanitizer went through the roof. Many buildings have dispensers next to all the elevators and stairs.

Is hand sanitizer effective? At one time I used to work in a 30 + story building and was part of the life safety team for fire drills. At the rally point, I had a clipboard and staff rosters. I needed to account for my teams. With my ‘GO KIT’ I also had a bottle of hand sanitizer- a small one the first time, a bigger one the second time and HUGE one the third. Why? Figure there are about 200 people per floor, and you are on floor 20. Heading downstairs, you will put your hand on the railing that 4,000 people just touched. What a great way to spread a cold or other nasty bug. Just think of that, 4.000 people, itching, scratching, picking (ok gross, but you get the picture)

When my teams came up to check in I offered them some hand sanitizer. At first people we ‘nah I’m good.’ After the above scenario, now I see may people sharing a squirt from their own stash of hand sanitizer. Almost reminds me of college days and shots of schnapps. That would work as a sanitizer too and you could drink it <LOL>. Somehow I don’t think the HR folks would be digging that. Sure would improve everyone’s outlook on fire drills! I digress. 

Back in the late 90’s we were all made aware of the dire consequences of not taking action. Planes would from the sky, phones would not work, and everything would stop working. Well, Y2K came and went and nothing happened. Except, we spent a fortune improving infrastructure and testing testing testing with the result that Y2K was a non-event. Post January 1, people asked, “why did we spend that money?” Was it necessary? Would it really have been that bad if new didn’t spend that money?

The parallels with pandemic planning are interesting. Since the predictions of dire results from massive flu outbreaks failed to occur, the predictions are like crying wolf.

The problem is the government ramped up their Pandemic response plan and the pandemic failed to have the impact expected/predicted. Just like Y2K, everyone got hyped up, but Armageddon didn’t happen. The flu failed to cooperate.

It would be nice to say that this isn’t going to happen again. It will. The problem for emergency managers and planners is the public will be skeptical to act so soon after the Swine Flu outbreak of 2009-2010. The take away from this article is being prepared and aware will always be beneficial, it is never a waste of time or resources especially since these plans can be reused and recycled as needed.

Think it doesn’t happen, think again. I was vaccinated against the Measles in 1966. My mother actually had my records! The firm I was working for a few years ago was in the process of buying a smaller firm. During the course of due diligence, many site visits were conducted. Well, lo and behold, some of staff from the target firm had just returned from extended tours overseas in an area of the world that didn’t practice immunization as the US and much of the first world has. The company made a decision everyone in the building needed to either provide proof of immunization or get the shot now.

The firm had a flu/ pandemic/communicable disease plan. They didn’t need to think about a response. They had one ready to roll. The Business Continuity team presented it to senior management with the options. The management team had what they needed on a timely basis, well thought out with options. This allowed them to implement a measured response to the incident.

Regardless of event size, planning and practice will always be beneficial, even if a predicted ‘big event’ doesn’t turn out. While the Swine Flu of last season didn’t turn out to be as bad as anticipated, the H5N1 Avian flu is still building and could break out to be on the scale of the great Flu of 1918. Let’s hope not. Being prepared and aware is the best response.

This post was prepared by John Manning, Associate Partner at Harvard Partners.  

He can be reached at john.manning@harvardpartners.com

Why Apple WINS

My coworkers like to gently rib me about my newfound appreciation for all things Mac.  It’s fun and I enjoy the teasing especially because I’m so often reminded of why Macs and other Apple products are so popular.  Here’s the most recent occasion.

Windows is obviously the OS of the business world and in some ways Macs still can’t quite cut it in the office, so I recently found myself buying Windows 7 Professional. Despite the $300 price tag I was excited to install it (yes, on my Mac via “Parallels”) and found the process simple.  Now, Window’s needs to be protected from evil people who write viruses so bundled with it comes antivirus software – I mean a “Security Suite.”  I don’t wish to slander the famous man (who perfected the smug, arms crossed, “I Have What You Need” look) or company producing this software so instead of calling it by name I’ll refer to it as “Trixie.”

I’m quite sure Trixie is a capable and invaluable product but like most things Windows it is often a royal pain in the backside.   Yes, I want to know I am “protected.”  Yes, I appreciate being told (constantly) Trixie is running in the background (continuously!).  YES, thank you Trixie for cleaning up those temp files where God knows what evil may lurk.  Of course, thank you, dear friend Trixie, for being ever present and in my face about every little thing you do for me and for slowing down my machine as you do it.  I realize I can ask my guardian Trixie to be less intrusive or obvious but have you actually tried to do it?  The point is I shouldn’t have to, it should just come that way.  

Trixie, Microsoft and many Windows-related products don’t understand many technologies should be ubiquitous and invisible.  Apple gets this hugely important notion and that’s why people who are new to Macs say they are so easy to use.  Think about your corporate network—or any network.  Good ones are just there and work.  They don’t tell me about how they are forwarding my packets or travelling long distances at light speed just to deliver my information, they just do what they are supposed to do.  Printing is another example (ok, except when the printer is jammed or out of paper).  I appreciate how powerful Windows tools can be but they should just work and not haunt me about every little thing they are doing.  It seems to remain important and relevant (read: something someone will pay for) Microsoft and its pals must make sure you know their software is there working its little kernel off.  So they tell you.  Constantly.

If all the meany virus authors got together and decided I’m sure they could cause serious problems for Macs, necessitating more significant “Security Suite” software to save us.  However, I’m equally sure Apple and its partner vendors would figure out how to do it with behind-the-scenes elegance that just works and doesn’t have to tell me about it all the time.  They get what Microsoft still doesn’t.

This post was prepared by Charles Kling, Associate Partner at Harvard Partners.

He can be reached on his Mac at charles.kling@harvardpartners.com