Worth a Second Look…
June 20th, 2008
Choice is Complete
Last year I switched from buying CD’s to downloading singles, therefore I have only occasionally acquired a complete “album” of music from one artist. Of the top 20 bands in my collection last year, more than three-quarters of these were cases where I downloaded one or two single tracks. The risk is that by doing this we might miss the summary effect of a complete work. This week we went to see the band “Sea Wolf” live and discovered that their debut album, “Leaves in the River”, is one of these cases. Like the new release by “Coldplay“, this one deserves a listen from start to finish.
A Second Look
At Ingres we are now taking a second look at our own digital face to our customers, the Ingres community, and Ingres Service Network. The capabilities we offer are all built utilizing open source tools and utilities. To render these sites as a more complete whole, we just signed up with Tricipher to provide a single sign-on solution for our web properties. They just released this as a SaaS based service which will integrate with all of our open source based solutions. We are excited to get on-line next month. This will complete stage one of a series of steps we are taking to keep the site updated and fresh.
Exceptional Value
Two years ago we set along this path with a strategy that focused on utilizing open source for infrastructure, web properties, and consumable utilities. This is the first time I have worked with a team to apply this strategy so aggressively, and it has paid off exceptionally well. What I have found is that developers now entering the work place are amazingly productive with open source tools, as well as leveraging communities and social networks to answer questions and complete solutions in a fraction of the time I have seen it take in the past. We are utilizing open source software including our Ingres database for discussion groups, content management, and collaboration. This allows us to provide a fairly rich capability at a fraction of the cost that it would have taken to deploy some of the closed source platforms. What it does require, is an architecture and plan for common services, some of which we are now altering after taking a new second look at the complete work.
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
Doug,
I have to say I’m impressed by how your blog reflects a balance and unity between work and play. I applaude this and your choices in music! Try out a band called “!!!” (also called Chick, Chick, Chick) for something new. I like their 2007 release “Myth Takes.”
As an Enterprise Business Architect, I have seen substantial growth and effort to improve the means by which companies meet the swiftly changing requirements from their internal and external customers/partners. I concur with the message you put forward here regarding the ever changing landscape of technology and how, if we are to flow with these changes rather than be consummed by them, it is vital to challenge the norms to keep pace with the times. As a wise man once told me, “be the water, not the rock.”
By choosing the right flexible/scalable solution, such as those presented by SaaS and Open Source solutions and partners, companies vastly improve their ability to meet the ever changing demands of their customers and partners.
People may call these open solutions “trends,” but I recall when a little thing called the “Web” was a trend. I, for one, choose to accept the forecast for change and will continue to look to open solutions as they are the foundations of a new age.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I think many of us have had the ‘death of the album’ conversation over the past few years. You should read Jason Fry’s ‘Real Time’ blog on wsj.com, as he writes about that sort of thing frequently.
The parallel here between the album and the software stack is an interesting one here. On a well-conceived album, there is some synergy among the songs, i.e., the whole album is greater than the sum of its parts. The same can be true of a software stack if it is equally well thought out. This doesn’t happen by magic, of course. Throwing together a bunch of open source (or any) software doesn’t add any value, just like most ‘Greatest Hits’ albums have little quality beyond the individual songs. The value comes from the ones who can tie the pieces together in the right way to form a complete work. (And of course, this is precisely where the Ingres Icebreaker Appliance is positioned.
August 6th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Doug
While I still rarely buy single songs, SaaS and open source have revolutionized my access and appreciation of music. I hope your readers will indulge me for a few minutes, I’ll explain how.
When I was a kid, in the instants before what seemed like monthly sessions of Marathon Man tooth torture, I marveled at how my Dentist could have different radio stations in each of his exam rooms.
I thought one day I’d like that – the on demand music in different rooms of my house, not the on demand torture.
So today, 35 years later, I have an open source music server running on a computer at home that connects with a variety of on demand (SaaS) services that deliver that fantasy plus more.
I can play my digital music library to stereos in different rooms at home.
Through plugins created by a robust expert development community, I can shares titles of what I listen to from my digital music library with online music services.
In turn these services stream back recommended music of their global membership.
More server plugins provide me instant access to lyrics services as the songs are playing, and instant access to biographical info.
When that isn’t enough, the server connects me to an Internet broadcast service lets me tune into DJ’s I used to listen to 25 years ago (sorry fellas) at WNEW who are now at WFUV streaming what they used to play plus new music on the Internet.
They don’t publish a real time playlist but … using a service that recognizes what they’re playing, I can see artist, title, lyrics in real time.
Bottom line; through open source and SaaS I get instant access to the worlds online music, history, lyrics included enhanced with recommendations from a global community … pretty much anywhere I want to listen. I forgot to mention it can stream this to an internet connected MP3 player wherever I am.
Details:
I’m a devoted Slim Devices (Logitech) Slimserver/Squeezebox/Squeezenetwork user. It’s part software (Slimserver – now Squeezecenter) part service (Squeezenetwork), part hardware (Squeezebox) and there’s even a software client (Softsqueeze).
I use on demand services include Last.fm, Pandora, YES.com
The best source of information on this system is on the Logitech Slim Devices site – forums and wiki. I think it’s a wonderful example of opensource and SaaS producing fantastic benefits for consumers (albeit with a bit of technical curiosity required).