Velocity 2006

I know I’m deviating from my normal topic Project Management. But I thought its worth to spend few minutes to write about Microsoft 2006 Partner conference in SL (Velocity)

Yesterday the whole day I was at Velocity. Thanks to the people who selected the venue.. Waters Edge is one my favorite places in Colombo.(any nature lover will admire this place.. anybody visiting Colombo , this is closer to the Parliament, by the side of beautiful “Diyawanna Oya” )

However I’m not bios towards one technology. Either Microsoft or Linux or what ever the technology, my interest is to manage the project and deliver its best value to the Stakeholders. But the place was full with “Microsoft Fans” (How can I be like that while using firefox Browser and thunderbird mail client. ? :( )

By starting the event, the Country Manager gave a speech based on IT sector of Sri Lanka.. He didn’t forget to mention the most popular problem what we always discuss in any IT event “IT resources in Sri Lanka” As he said it’s a very big problem. In SL, we find difficult to recruit good IT resources. Only few skilled people are rotating in companies, In his own words, Its like a “Merry-go-Round” When we know a good developer in another company we offer few bucks more and recruit him, after few months another company will do the same to us.. By continuing like this we will not go anywhere. Hmmm.. Something to think about seriously… He requested from partners to invest on IT skill development of the employees.. But then again.. How many companies will recover that investment in a floating resource market like this? Do you invest money and time to train a person for another to recruit.. The problem is even more complicated.. Any way I can talk about this for 1 whole day with my past experience by interviewing Developers for project requirements J It’s a nightmare..

Another point which he highlighted was the Licensing issue. We complain that the customers do not understand the value of Software.. But.. Do we understand it?? How many of us are using licensed copies of Software.. ? My personal belief of Microsoft Software Licensing is something different.. But I better not discuss it here .. ^^&^$#& )

The presenter who presented Miscrosoft Vs Linux was capitalizing on him working for Redhat before joining Microsoft. I really wonder How many of XMicrosoft guys must be working for Redhat at the moment. (What a business World ........)

Windows Vista was presented to the audience with a small demo. The presenter tried to do a small example to make it more interesting. Unfortunately the Example didn’t work ………………………….(Any way Im not a baby tux to say .. Another Microsoft Product… So I would say.. these things happens in presentations…) But overall, Vista looks like a really cool product to play with..

The Last lecture was given by an Indian Dr. and that was the best lecture of the whole event. His lecture was focused on how a technical person would map IT with business requirements for a successful sale.

Following is one of the examples given by him;

He said that windows 2003 Server has over 3500 Features

He questioned the product resellers and IT guys in the audience; what are the features used by their customers… and then he listed them, and counted them there were 8 features.

So the customer buys Windows 2003 Server for Rs. 80,000 (Example)

Windows 2003 Server has over 3500 Features

So the value of 1 feature = Rs.22.85

The value he gets by spending Rs.80,000 is Rs. 182.8

So who’s problem is this ? Microsoft’s? Customers? Or the person who sells it?

May be it’s a silly example. But this tells a long story about our selling

Not only for selling Microsoft products. We can relate this to any product selling we do.

“Forest Trust” was another good example of him to explain why Technical guys fail in convincing higher management of an organization.

Any way its really a rear skill to find IT guys who are good in their technical knowledge as well as selling. People who have that ability are always a success.

At last as usual the cocktail …….. :) People and time to gossip about industry news.. Hey where is this person working now.. Oh the looser is in that place..? How is business.. So How is the IT market…… Yeahhh. Its better to move out of IT now…….But I didn’t spend much time there as I was getting late……………