The bad thing about a good vacation is that it haunts you. I am still trapped in time after the snorkeling in the blue and green beaches in Langkawi. The office and keyboard still feels odd. If all this was not enough, I watched Avatar and understood the meaning of out-of-the-world-experience. Getting back to reality one step at a time. One baby step at a time. 

AOL Keywords EraDo you remember AOL Keywords? AOL sold AOL keywords that can be searched inside their walled garden or internet as they called it. As AOL was synonymous with internet, businesses had to buy keywords so that users can find them on AOL. This was a controlled access that worked for a while,  when websites came with their own URLs, followed by better search engines like Google. The AOL keywords faded and became irrelevant. I Think Gartner's Magic Quadrant will end up like AOL Keywords. Gartner's Magic Quadrant - So Far Gartner's Magic Quadrant is considered a big deal. Every year when the Magic Quadrant comes out, vendors go crazy over PR mileage it can give. Unfortunately, a few who are not mentioned or mentioned in the wrong place get frustrated, this time we saw ZL sueing Gartner over Magic Quadrant and Gartner won with a response of how the report is Opinions not based on facts. The reason Gartner's stuff is a big deal now is because of their research reports helped people to quickly understand the technology and players and future. This research is based on Talking to customers, understanding and learning from their implementationsArriving at conclusions

 BMC announced in DreamForce event that they were offering ServiceDesk on the cloud using Force.com. This is a very good move, I am sure this will help customers to get a ServiceDesk by just signing up. You don't need consultants / experts to install and configure the system. http://www.bmc.com/solutions/ondemand.htmlHere's BMC CEO with Marc Benioff But, Where Is The Product on AppExchange / StandAloneThe demo was good, however I am not able to see the product on SF.com's AppXchange or any links. Can anyone send the link on the real product - no demo stuff. 

BMC Software Leverages Amazon Web Services to Simplify Deployment and Management of Cloud EnvironmentsBMC Press Release I feel that BMC's PR on Cloud Computing needs a little explanation as it has the word cloud computing is often mistaken for SaaS. BMC's parntership with Amazon EC2 will help users to move their Software Installation to the cloud. It is NOT BMC's software moving to the cloud.There's a big difference, let me explain.First, What is Amazon EC2Amazon EC2 is Virtualized Infrastructure as Service. Let's take an example, how will a small business run apps and offer a service? They have to rent / own data centers, they have to buy their own hardware and server software and then hire specialists to manage datacenters. Over time this non-core function takes a lot of resources which is not the core focus of business. Amazon EC2 helps you with an Infrastructure virtualization solution. With EC2,  you can instanly provision any type of server hardware you want and choose the software and within minutues your server is ready. You can even remote control the machine. This helps you rapidly scale up or downsize infrastructure in minutes. All you have to pay is a monthly charge for usage of machine

This is a follow-up to the my previous post Saas Fever Catches On With ITIL Tool Vendors. Everyone has it, atleast in PR. I tried to look at a few emerging players, in this post, let look at all the ITSM players on SaasWhat I mean by Saas? Please, providing Hosting Is NOT SAASSaas Apps need to multi-tenant, as a user should be able to sign up, try, and use it over a web browser without having to install or download products. It also means that service upgrade must be taken care of by the vendor. Hosting products or providing a data center where products are hosted and calling it On-demand is not Saas. It's PR hype trying to cash in Saas, It's BS.SaaS ITIL Tools/ VendorsNow that we have clearly defined what's Saas, it becomes really simple as there are a very few!Service-Now : Service-now.comService-now really covers ITSM to a great extent. It's no surprise, as the founders are ex-Peregrine techies. They have built ITIL features in breadth and depth. Service-Now wants to play only the big league, Business Service Management stuff on the product and minimum price tag of $40k shows that they are shooting for the BMC, CA and

 Friendly Request FormsUsers hate request forms, for the same reason why everyone hates tax-filing-forms!  All the complicated request forms are ignored and users simply call or email the helpdesk.  Technicians end up taking calls or have to deal with data spread over emails. A few points to consider while designing request formsSimple forms with selectable incident type and descriptionGet all information about users using helpdesk and asset management solutionPrompt users to refer the knowledge base on related topics before filing the request.Request form is the best way to get organized information from users. Keep the forms simple and to the point to reduce incoming call and email volumes.Minimize Manual Request DispatchManual Dispatch is not only exhausting and tedious, requests waiting for dispatch leaves less time for technicians to resolve issues. Automating dispatch and routing the request to the right technician using helpdesk workflow helps technicians to get more time to resolve issues and meet SLAs.  Automatic dispatch needs to be intelligent enough to route tickets based on email address, content, category or any such classifications.  Stop manual request dispatching, before it kills someone.Empower Every Technician to DeliverEmpower every technician to help users get over problems with work around and solutions. It is important for Work Around to be shared across technicians. Get a process in place and make sure helpdesk software has provisions for easy sharing. Never get yourself in a situation where you have to depend on one technician to resolve specific cases. Have a Weekly/ fortnightly

Just when we were ready to take the PinkVerify / PinkScan Certification, OGC announced ITIL Certification for software vendors. Now OGC owns ITIL or directs ITIL so it becomes the most obvious choice.  For the first time since the creation of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) over 20 years ago, the OGC have given their official endorsement for an ITIL product compliance scheme to audit Vendor products, documentation and processes against the published best practices of ITIL (v2 and v3).Unlike PinkElephant, OGC Is Not Transparent PinkElephant had a clearly defined process with evaluation criteria and they charged for consulting if we failed to comply. It was straight forward, software vendors can focus and release a service pack to make sure that the product complied. OGC is not transparent, and there are so many ways to interpret a standard. Do I get to see the questions beforehand?  No. The questions will remain with the Licensed Assessor and only be asked at the time of the assessment. The Vendor should treat the tool assessment element as if they were demonstrating to a prospective client how they adhere to ITIL. This is to ensure a level playing field where some vendors have more

I am doing a webinar with Evelyn Hubbert, Senior Analyst at Forresterfocusing on how ITIL can be made simple. When I visit customers to help them on ITIL implementation, I see that they have already complicated it by trying to implement ITIL as they they learnt in the ITIL certification. Yes, that is the problem after the ITIL certification everyone takes it as a personal challenge to implement a lot of ITIL processes. Finally it all ends up being complicated and expensive. Implement ITIL on Can-you-live-without-it-now basis ?The key is to be minimal and simple. Try implementing the small essentials first, like structured categorization in Incident, Problems and Solutions or an Priority Matrix. When your team starts to see results, roll out the process one by one. ITIL Webinar FocusWe are trying to answer a basic question of why it ITIL so complicated or sometimes as the IT Skeptic says "ITIL End In Tears" . Get the answers on Why ITIL is Complicated and Time Consuming? How can you make it simple and get ITIL to work for you. Get the scoop of how  IT Managers around the world implement ITIL successfully? We'll try to answer some common questions, if you have

A couple of days back there are a roaring discussion in twitter, most people complaining that ITIL V3 was complicated. The main question was if it is worth paying and getting a certification at a time when there are not many jobs around. What do you think? Let me knowhttp://zohopolls.com/alexdpaul/is-it-worth-paying-for-itil-certification-now

Now every ITIL software vendor talks about "the cloud" and "Saas". The simple reason is that if you don't have it- you are a legacy application. I see a true web 2.0 and saas spirit lagging. I was still unable to login and take it for an easy test drive. The old model of leave your mail-ids-sales-folks-will-get-back sucks, only one was close Beetil1. Octopus Software  Octopus, a salesforce.com wannabe for the ITSM industry but they did not follow Saleforce's usability and user persona focus. A Saas application with windows control panel like UI, please. The lengthy sign up, old age UI, no free demos are all turn offs. The price is based per user access to $ 50/ user maybe expensive for small shops. However it is a good start. Let's see how they roll.Update: The license is based on technicians $50 per Technicians [Not users] which is good.2. Incident Monitor These guys are funny, really. Check this out. Our proven track record for SaaS can not be matched. Our typical 3 day SaaS service project plan for either your specific solution need or our standard ITIL Helpdesk, covers the following: Day 1 - Set Up, configure your initial project using