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Unwiring IT

10 Posts tagged with the remedy tag

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

 

Here's an interesting exercise I tried last week: go back two years in your day planner. What were you doing? How did you do it? Pull up last Tuesday and ask the same questions. Remarkable, huh? I spent more time on the road, interacted with fewer people, knew less about their lives, and had a ton more paper in mine. Case in point: wheels up two years ago meant forced down time. Not so today. With in-air WiFi and faster, more capable devices, 5B is just an office with a view (and a fat dude snoring but that for another post).

 

Work and life are digital. But more important, they move faster. They're more agile, more complete - all in a way that makes them richer and more fulfilling. Extend these trends out two years and factor in the Droid generation - adolescents raised today with the expectation that anything is a click away - and it's tough to imagine what we'll be doing and how we'll do it. One thing is clear: life won't happen in front of a PC and service delays and information gaps won't be tolerated.

 

Inspired by that world, we recently launched our most exciting product ever. It extends the value we've always provided IT to the rest of the business. It's not a product launch as much as a reminder that technology is catching up with life as quick as life is catching up with technology. The product is called Mobile BMC Self Service and it devolves control over how and where we work to where it should have always been: the hands of end-users.

 

Mobile BMC Self Service gives you and me, mortals with phones, the power we've always needed. We can now submit and manage service requests, browse the catalog, and know in real-time wherever we are when our issues are being worked, by whom, and when they'll be resolved. The way to build more dynamic businesses isn't to add features or work longer hours. It's by spending more time collaborating and less time waiting. It's by making fewer calls to the service desk and more calls to action that drive innovation and create business value.

 

What we announced is bigger than a new product, bigger than anything we could do alone. It's the next step in the evolution of enterprise self-service. It's the culmination of years of hard work and industry leadership from BMC, Aeroprise, and RIM. You'll be hearing more about it in the months ahead but consider this your invitation to join a dialog that's just getting started and will influence how we all work and live for years to come.

 

Want to learn more? Check out this video of Mobile BMC Self Service in action.

 

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

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By popular demand, here's that link to the video we used to launch Mobile BMC Self Service at last week's WWRUG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRzeyMOjnl4.

 

Thanks for all the great feedback on the new product and the mobility discussion with Doug Mueller! It was a reminder of why the Remedy community is so vibrant after so many years.

 

And of course thanks to Daniel Bloom, Phil Bautista, Lenny Warren, Joel Sender, Kelly Deaver, and everyone who put on an excellent event!

 

See you next year!

 

-Dan and the Aeroprise team

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Join the dialog about trends in mobile BSM live at the World Wide RUG event in Las Vegas. Doug and I will be discussing what's hot, what's up ahead, and what you can do immediately to help your organization reduce costs and improve productivity. The session is Wednesday, November 11 at 3:00pm. See you there!

 

Can't join us? Download Doug's whitepaper about the right way to mobilize IT support.

 

 

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

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-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

 

Dear CIO:

 

I'm here to divulge your secret. That one you keep guarded from vendors then brag about over beers at bonding events. We're on to you. But I want you to know there's nothing to be ashamed of and you're not alone. Every one of the 500,000 gear heads lining up for a 3G S this weekend knows exactly how you feel.

 

You don't purchase mobile software based on Return On Anything - investment, capital, or otherwise. At the moment of truth, you buy because you need to, because you don't want to be left behind, because your peers would mock you for being a laggard if you didn't.

 

You purchase mobile applications because it's a new world and even though you're not exactly sure you believe those payback models or all the MBA speak you know mobile applications are here to stay. And while you can't predict where the S&P 500 will be next year you know your users will be more mobile in 12 months than today. And you know mobile devices keep getting better, networks keep getting more reliable, service costs keeps falling, and battery life keeps improving. But most important, you know you're roadkill if you think you can survive without staying connected.

 

One of your brethren told me last week (in confidence, no names to protect the sheepish) that he'll never look at the Aeroprise ROI model his analyst built. But it'll be there for posterity, confirm he did due diligence, and ensure his decision sidesteps CFO scrutiny. Why did he buy? There are a dozen reasons and while all of them relate to saving money and providing strategic support to the business not one involves numbers on a spreadsheet.

 

The problem isn't that ROI is obsolete. In fact, it’s more relevant than ever. It's just necessary but not sufficient - like the rental car rider on your auto insurance policy or the cardboard sleeve for your latte. ROI is particularly useless as a guide for mobile projects because so little is known up front about where actual cost savings will occur. Oh, they're there - but the most successful projects are ones that ooze into new business units and creep across department lines to generate returns never anticipated.

 

So don't let me burst your bubble oh deity of data, sultan of servers. Feel free to pretend we don't know. Keep ridiculing our gullibility. But then do more of same - believe in the power of mobile solutions to transform your business. Think beyond the spreadsheet and create your own ROI reality unfettered by macros and pivot tables. Then, if you're so bold, share your story. You'd be amazed at how many closet ROI heretics will benefit from it.

 

-dan

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

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-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

 

I looked up from my BlackBerry at last week’s Tech Policy Summit just long enough to realize how much of the audience was doing the same thing - tweeting, texting, IMing, blogging and, gasp, working from mobile devices. I was half paying attention to Walt Mossberg but my mind was in a dozen other places doing a dozen different things. And I'm not ashamed of that. That's how I, er, we, work.

 

Dominic Papatola, a columnist for the Pioneer Press, set out to bemoan the demise of the attention span. He concluded that tools like Twitter are actually “cross-training” for other forms of communication. A nice image that captures what short attention span living does so well. With the help of mobile technology and social media, our ability to engage in rapid cognition is more than keeping pace with the ever-shrinking time we spend processing new information. Mobile is the new fixed. 140 characters is the new column inch. We are the new fourth estate.

 

More tweets are sent via mobile device than PC. More than a billion iPhone apps have been downloaded (an alarmingly-high 62 per iPhone!). Astonishingly, one of every seven minutes of media consumption takes place on a mobile device (source: AOL). Information consumption patterns haven't changed like this since the printing press. We're in the middle of a series of tectonic shifts we won't fully appreciate for another 20 years.

 

The convergence of better mobile technology with viral social applications is feeding our insatiable appetite for instant gratification. Layer on the demise of print media, the Kindle’s verbification (as in The New York Times was “Kindled”), and it's clear we've only seen the beginning.

 

To wit: a college buddy (proudly) no longer answers his phone but responds instantly to text messages any time of day or night. A customer told me recently he hasn't used a laptop in three months since downloading Aeroprise and doesn't plan to go back.

 

Mobile applications are no longer “en vogue” or only for "technophiles" or “Berry addicts”. They’re about survival. About being the one who used the ten minutes saved to close an extra deal or turn “pending” into “resolved”. They’re less about being the first to know and more about not being the last.

 

Don’t agree? Look around the next time you’re at an event or in an airport. If for no other reason, your thumbs need the rest.

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

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-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

 

Stick 5,000 BlackBerry enthusiasts of all colors, races, shapes, and sizes under one roof for four sleep-deprived days and magic happens. Two lasting impressions from WES 2009:

 

 

1) The surreal scene at the will.i.am concert when he asked the booze-soaked crowd (tragically, most didn’t know who he was) to wave their BlackBerrys in the air like lighters. The place lit up like a Christmas tree.

 

 

2) I saw a great demo yesterday of a BlackBerry that is also a projector. Not an input to one but an actual functioning LCD projector fitted with a surprisingly sharp, bright laser that projects whatever is being presented on the device onto a 17” window on the wall.

 

 

When we first attended WES in 2003, it was in a basement in Chicago. Us and a few other ISVs traded war stories and wondered aloud if we had bet on the right pony. But mostly we crouched in lotus positions near windows or outside in the pouring rain trying to get a Mobitex or DataTAC wireless signal (yeah, well, it wasn’t funny then). Today, there are hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of customers, and hordes of media-types all clamoring for a peek at the next big thing – and, in so doing, creating it.

 

 

It’s not just a great time to be part of the BlackBerry community. It’s a way to watch a cultural phenomenon evolve from the inside. We exhibited with BMC and were amazed by how many conversations started with “Finally! My manager’s instructions were to find a way to use Remedy on BlackBerry and here you are.” Great energy but that wasn’t the most notable part of the show.

 

 

It was the reminder that even though there is only one RIM and many ISVs that develop BlackBerry applications (well north of 500 at last count), it remains the case that BlackBerry (the device, company, and pop icon) is every bit as dependent on its partners as we are on RIM. No mobile OS has an enterprise ecosystem even 1% as evolved as BlackBerry and what was clear this week is the gap is only getting wider. Call us the clownfish to RIM’s anemone. It would all seem hero-worshipy if it weren’t genuinely symbiotic.

 

 

RIM’s success is the result of years of paying close attention to unmet customer needs, not competing with its partners, and aggressively expanding its platform by focusing on the things we value – a stable device that is second-to-none with the best security model, battery life, a crack team of experts at our beck and call, and solid developer tools.

 

 

The iPhone, you say? A phenomenal device and a ground-breaking app distribution model – but a black hole for enterprise ISVs. RIM is light years ahead when it comes to go-to-market strategies, carrier sell-through, partner sales support and, most importantly, experience supporting large enterprise customers. But what was most motivational about WES is that despite years of torrid growth, five minutes in the exhibit hall confirmed we’ve only seen the opening act of a show none of us can afford to miss. Bring your BlackBerry.

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

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-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

 

Jim Balsillie, RIM Co-CEO, announced banner earnings a few weeks back. Call it Novocain for Wall Street. A (now-clichéd) green shoot signaling the worst may be over. For RIM, that's only part of the story.

 

7.8 million BlackBerry smartphones shipped last quarter. Impressive considering it took six years to sell the first three million. The company just sold its 50 millionth smartphone (in 10 years compared with 17 million iPhones in 18 months), generated 3.5 billion dollars in the past three months, raised earnings guidance for 2010, and is gaining steam thanks to a stock price that has nearly doubled since March.

 

For years, each quarter RIM has silenced doubters but without Jobsian fanfare. Before achieving each milestone – email, battery life, security, screen resolution, camera, touch screen, WiFi, app store – skeptics said the company had met its Waterloo (yeah, pun intended). So maybe I'm a BlackBerry fanboy but there are many of us and for good reason. Every day is Christmas at RIM right now and, by association, for all of us in its orbit.

 

What’s more, it’s clear the competition with Apple is only bringing out the best in RIM. If you’ve been to HQ (AKA “hit Toronto and turn left at BFE”) then you know the place buzzes with type A, hyper-competitive, wicked smart Canadians who thrive on their second fiddle status in the smartphone street-cred war. Put it all together and you get a cultural phenomenon the likes of which we haven’t seen since Atari or Michael Jackson in the 80s.

 

All true, you say, but BlackBerry is getting trounced on the consumer side, right? Actually, what’s most notable about last quarter’s earnings is that while the BlackBerry enterprise juggernaut tightened its iron grip on wireless budgets (more on that next post), once-ridiculed consumer devices like the Pearl and Curve are stealing market share from Symbian and iPhone. Hey, even Hannah Montana’s a power user. What once was a 90-10 enterprise-consumer split for RIM is now more like 60-40 even as enterprise market share increases.

 

All of which is why here at Aeroprise we’re proud that when Jim Balsillie described what powered growth the past few months he singled out BMC Remedy Service Desk for BlackBerry, the product we launched recently with RIM and BMC and the first of many exciting initiatives to come from the partnership. So Jim, thanks for the kind words but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

 

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

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Dell Doesn't Get It

Posted by Dan Turchin Dec 19, 2008
Insourcing ploy sends the wrong message.

Dell, a tech pioneer in every respect, is charging $99 per year for access to support agents who "speak American". So there is now a price on "free" tech support. Sanctioned xenophobia. At a time when the world is getting smaller and flatter, this marks a low point in cultural sensitivity and signals a disturbing trend for the support industry. Shame on you Dell. Shame on us for driving Dell to this.

 

Bob Kaufman, Dell spokesman, said "this illustrates Dell's commitment to customer choice." I disagree wholeheartedly. A commitment to customer choice would be offering premium support for a premium price. A premium price for a "premium accent" is a choice nobody should get.

 

The problem is not offshore support agents and it's typically not their accents. The problem is offshoring for the wrong reasons - volume and cost savings - instead of the right ones - quality, specialization, and breadth of coverage. The wrong business drivers lead directly to poor service quality and unfair associations between service levels and language skills.

 

I'm not condoning the outsourcing of American jobs. Quite the opposite. I'm mourning Dell's brazen disregard for market forces that otherwise require our education system and tech leaders to keep up with the rest of the world. The message this sends is that mediocrity is ok if you "speak American" - a gross insult to every American support agent.

 

At Aeroprise, we provide (excellent, responsive, intelligible) support from our office in Bangalore. I can say with 100% confidence that geography doesn't make good service, training and corporate culture do.

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Wireless to the Rescue

Posted by Dan Turchin Nov 26, 2008
Four of five news stories these days are all bailout-redux doom and gloom. The fifth is about boom times in wireless. I don't want to call it come-uppance but let's just say wireless veterans have enough scar tissue to gloat.

Case in point: Friday's news cycle was dominated by Citigroup, Detroit's groveling, Obama's sugar daddies... and Verizon's launch of the BlackBerry Storm. Quite the juxtaposition: economy faltering, retailers failing, government posturing, and lines around the building for tech bling.

What I want to know is who's out waiting in line at 4am? Is it the dude whose home was just foreclosed? The single mom drowning under the weight of credit card debt? The bonus-starved Wall Street banker who can't leave home without wearing a paper bag? To read the news, you'd think we all fall into one of those categories. The wireless industry is living proof we don't.

What once was a line used solely by tech-heads has become an enterprise-wide mantra: wireless is essential for business. No wink wink nod. No sneaking around CFO authorization. How else to explain Ovum's sunny mobile data revenue forecast this week? The analyst reports 51% data growth for AT&T in the past year, 43% for Verizon, and no sign of a slowdown through 2009. No sign of a slowdown! Wall Street's a smoldering heap, the Fed is bailing out anything that moves, and gallant wireless data on white horse with lance and shield is riding in to the rescue.

We've arrived. Took long enough.
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These days the Wall Street Journal reads like a bad episode of Sesame Street. Turns out today's must-have gadget is brought to us by the letter 'G', as in T-Mobile's 'G1' gPhone. The perennial second-tier carrier ushered in the Android era with a device (manufactured by Taiwan's HTC) that is (gasp!) eerily similar to last year's iPhone and has all the features we've come to expect in a swiss army phone: WiFi, GPS, QWERTY keyboard, touch-screen, accelerometer, and, oh yeah - a phone.

What I found most notable had nothing to do with the features. It was the (carefully-scripted) way wunderkind Google co-founders Larry and Sergey introduced it (paraphrased here): "finally, a handheld device with the power to do the things we grew up doing on computers." The gPhone's geek-cred comes not from the fact that it's a cool smartphone but from the fact that it's a cool computer. Mark the date: data capabilities have officially trumped voice capabilities.

Twenty years ago Nintendo launched the age of wireless data with its brick of a handheld game console, the Gameboy. Ten years ago Motorola launched the age of mobile voice with its StarTAC. They finally converged. Chris O'Brien, columnist for the Mercury News, writes: "when I came to Silicon Valley in 1999, the refrain at mobile trade shows was always the same: "Next year is going to be the year when the mobile Internet becomes huge!" That next year never seemed to come. Until now. The mobile web is here, and it's huge." The incredible thing is it's "huge" and barely anyone's using it. Just imagine what happens when that changes.

In 1998, Interactive Home magazine coined the term "third screen" to refer to something other than your TV or PC. In recent years, the moniker has been co-opted by the mobile industry to refer to mobile devices. As we trek through the alphabet and creep ever-closer to the holy grail of handhelds that are *better* than PCs, the days of the first and second screens as we know them are numbered.
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