I want to answer a question I receive a lot in this post. The question is this: Why do you write about so many different technologies? The easy answer is that I love technology. However, the deeper answer comes from my philosophy of technology utilization in organizations. This philosophy can be summed up as Information Business Technology. We don’t want to store, transfer, manage and destroy information just for the sake of information. We don’t want to implement, manage and upgrade technology just for the sake of technology. The pivot point that brings these two factors together is the business (or organization if you’re in a non-profit or government institution). The point is simple we manage information and technology for the benefit of the business.
Since I am an Information Business Technology professional, I make sure I know about technologies impacting the three key areas of information utilization: information storage (databases), information transfer (networks) and information processing (clients and applications). I am an expert in Microsoft’s SQL Server storage technology and in wireless networking transfer technologies. I am also an expert in Windows desktop technologies and applications. These are the primary technologies on which I’ve chosen to focus. For this reason, I write about SQL Server, wireless networking and other related networking technologies, and Microsoft desktop and server operating systems; however, I never lose sight of my purpose Information > Business > Technology.
With the upcoming release of Windows 7, I’ve been thinking a lot about this question: How does Windows 7 improve on information processing within my philosophy of Information Business Technology? My intent is not to fully answer this question here, but to point out how my philosophy impacts my thinking and decisions related to technology investments. First, we can all agree that – on the same hardware – Windows 7 is faster than Vista. This is a big improvement for users of Vista, but it does nothing for users of Windows XP. If my users are on Windows XP with no driving business need to move to Vista (losing support, incompatible applications – the rare app that works with Vista but not XP, etc.), the fact that Windows 7 performs better than Vista is of no real value to them.
Without burdening you with the complete discussion of Windows 7 (which I do believe has a number of excellent business-value benefits over XP), suffice it to say that we must ensure business value comes from our technology investments. Thanks for the questions. It’s always a good reminder for me too.
