Two interesting articles posted by Computerworld today, on the emerging trends as seen by leading IT industry analysts:

• Gartner predicts the end of IT as we know it
• SaaS to drive the local software market, says IDC

Gartner’s alternative IT delivery models include:

• business process utilities
• infrastructure utilities
• storage as a service
• grid computing
• communications as a service
• utility computing
• capacity on demand
• remote management services
• software as a service
• web platforms
• community source
• software streaming
• software-based appliances
• user-owned devices

And IDC predicts:

• The local software market will increase at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 8.2%, predicts IDC. ……. One of the trends expected to drive the market is software-as-a-service (SaaS), says Ullrich Loeffler, team leader of software research at IDC Pacific. The SaaS delivery model is an attractive value proposition for small- and medium-sized businesses, he says. “But we are also seeing quite a few companies in the high-end adopting software-as-a-service.”

There’s a sea-change underway, but a few things have yet to be built up to the levels required for widespread market acceptance - not least of which are trust and confidence in the security, resilience and longevity of vendors of these services. Those will come, but I expect a few glitches on the way.

I enjoy reading economist Chris Dillow, even if he infuriates me occasionally. His take on life is very different : he’s a self-proclaimed Marxist who writes for several respected financial and business journals, he doesn’t have much truck with ideology, right or left, but he’s (usually) a believer in markets - where they aren’t sullied by monopolists and politicians. He doesn’t have much time for professional bosses either, and sees managerialism as another form of value capture by vested interests. All this makes for an interesting read. Even if you don’t agree with him (which I’m sure bothers him not one jot), at least he makes you think. While on my travels, I had time to read his blog in a more leisurely fashion, and I thought you might be interested in some of his articles. First up, his thoughts on biases against science:

Professor Mark Pepys says “grossly inadequate” education has left most people “tone deaf” to science. I fear he’s right. But the problem isn’t confined to schools. There’s a vast number of biases that stop people thinking scientifically.
First, a matter of definition. Science is not merely, or even mainly, a body of facts. If it were, the problem of scientific ignorance would be easily solved.
Instead, the importance of science lies in its method - the way in which theories (stress the plural) are challenged against as much evidence as possible. In this sense, even scientists often fail to be scientific, as Richard Dawkins and James Watson have recently shown. And many doctors have a notoriously vague grasp of probability.

I reckon there are at least four biases against the scientific method:

1. The power of authority. From infanthood onwards, we’re brought up to believe authority. It’s often sensible to do so. Parents and teachers know more than us. And it’s just impractical to work everything out for ourselves. But the scientific method requires that we believe not people but the evidence - and, indeed, are sceptical even of that. In this sense, Lord Rees - president of the Royal Society - was encouraging anti-science when he spoke recently of the “scientific consensus.” You don’t reach the truth through opinion polls.

2. The power of anecdote. People believe single, salient stories more than thousands of statistical data points. Take the question: does the MMR vaccine cause autism? The proper way to answer this is to fill in the four boxes (jab/no jab, autism/no autism) to establish correlations, and to ask: what are the possible mechanisms linking the vaccine to autism? Instead, people preferred the vivid story: “the son of a friend of a friend had the jab, and a few weeks later seemed to have autism.“ Few asked the scientific questions: how representative is this story? What’s the mechanism? The media perpetuate this bias. Journalists much prefer the human interest story to dry statistical inference. But you don’t necessarily get to the truth through entertainment.

3. The cult of self-expression. Everyone thinks they “have a right to an opinion”, a views fostered by vox pops and phone-in programmes. But opinion doesn’t matter. What matters is evidence and thought. Proper science is democratic in the sense that it considers all evidence, from whomsoever it comes. But it’s not democratic in the sense that it gives weight to the idle opinion of every passer-by.

4. Overconfidence. It’s very easy for our confidence in our opinion to grow faster than the evidence. This is especially likely if our achievements in one field win us prizes and esteem. This, I suspect, is part of the reason for James Watson’s unfortunate utterances.

The message here is that it’s not just schools to blame for scientific illiteracy. Indeed, the scientific method is profoundly unnatural - that’s why it took mankind millennia to stumble upon it.

Go to his blog to see all the comments this engendered.

I’m back home after my longest-ever overseas trip (excluding projects), combining Fronde business (San Francisco, New York and London) with a long-overdue 3 week break (Arras, Ieper, Cardiff, Normandy, Nice and Paris). I need to lose a couple of kilos (well, actually, quite a lot of kilos) after all the great food and wine. And I need a week off to recover from all the travel and activity. We won’t mention the rugby.

Anyway, like any long trip, I had lots of time to think about the meaning of life, the universe and everything. As usual, the answer is 42, so no great new insights there. As for any other momentous thinking, watch this space.

In London for a quick business visit before returning home, I switched on the TV to catch the news before heading out to dinner. A senior executive from Tesco, Britain’s leading supermarket retailer, was expounding a very strong line in the food miles debate. The British Soil Association is apparently demanding that “organic status” should only be accorded to locally grown produce, or failing that, the distance travelled by the produce must be shown.

The man from Tesco rubbished the whole idea. I paraphrase, but his argument was neatly summed up with this example: the total carbon footprint of a British tomato (across the entire planting, growing, picking, packing and distribution lifecycle) is 5 times greater than an air-freighted Kenyan tomato. He described the food miles argument as muddled thinking seized upon by vested interests who are really seeking protectionism.

I may have to eat my words (not for the first time!). I’d previously expected that the food miles argument appealed to a broader hankering after an idyllic rural past, but hard-hitting comment like this means that mainstream food marketing channels have stopped pandering to sentiment and are asking people to face facts about their food, especially if they want to keep the present low cost, wide variety, and non-seasonality.

However, I like buying local produce, when it’s better quality. I also, as do many other people, get that warm, fuzzy feeling about “the land”. The food miles argument has still got legs.

Having spent nearly 3 weeks in France (I’m currently in Nice), I’m increasingly impressed by what I’ve seen - well-educated and cosmopolitan people, huge investment in infrastructure, and a strong belief in and application of technology as well as social mechanisms, without compromising on style and quality. Not to mention wonderful countryside, great food and wine, and good weather.

President Sarkozy wants to liberalise the economy, bureaucracy, social welfare and tax. Let’s not kid ourselves - it’s a massive change he’s propounding, which he may not be able to deliver. But if he can, France feels like a nation with the inherent scale, space, ambience and lifestyle to be a very good place to live, work and play. Dominic, you were spot on.

Fronde has some important clients in France, and we expect to do well with our mobile banking and mobile 2-factor security products.

Je suis en vacance. I haven’t read a paper or watched TV since a rugby disaster in Cardiff last week. However, I’m not crying in my beer. The current lack of articles is due  to being out of contact for the past week, cruising the Seine through Normandy. If you haven’t been to Normandy, I thoroughly recommend it.

Anyway, I haven’t a clue what’s happening in the world, but now I’m in Paris, I might write something soon, or not.

One of the big news items while I was in the USA was the failure of internet darling and online bank Netbank. It has effectively crashed, not because of its online business model, per se, but because it failed in the basics of banking - borrow long, lend short, spread your depositor and borrower portfolios, and keep a tight grip on the risk factors in your borrowers. The current credit crunch exposed these weaknesses, just as they did with more conventional financial institutions like Northern Rock in the UK and New Zealand’s weaker finance houses.

The internet and other new tools enable a service business to start up with very little infrastructure. Old school businesses grow slowly, but learn how to control and manage their business at the same time. Rapid growth businesses don’t have that luxury. They can have thousands or millions of customers in a very short period after beginning. Often the people involved in such technology-based start-ups have had limited exposure to the nuts and bolts of running large businesses.

You might argue that’s fine - that’s the price of innovation. I’d argue differently. The problem isn’t with the new business idea or the new channels. It’s with the lack of basic old-fashioned management disciplines. If you’re affecting other people (customers, investors, suppliers and staff), you’re beholden to manage your business well. To anything less is basically negligent, and sometimes even illegal.

Steve Ellis came across this Businessweek article about a survey of mid-sized companies (US definition: 100+ employees. There’s hope or despair in this for some!

Part of our strategy for Fronde Anywhere - our mobile application products venture - is to build market reach through relationships with significant global and regional players. This rapidly increases our potential exposure to new customers beyond our own on-the-ground presence, and takes advantage of our high profile among leading technology and finance industry analysts.

In the last 3 weeks, Fronde Anywhere has announced partnerships with RSSS in South Africa, ccPace in the USA, and LogicaCMG globally, in addition to its existing in-house relationship with the rest of the Fronde Systems Group. Fronde Anywhere can focus on market entry, channel support and product development, while its partners, with their long-standing and more intimate client relationships, are in the best position to identify and satisfy individual client needs for mobile banking and enterprise authentication applications, including business implementation, customisation, integration and support.

I arrived in New York today (Monday) to visit our Americas branch on 3rd Avenue (pictured - our office is on the 2nd floor) and to meet some people. Unfortunately they may not have got me at my best. After a full day of sightseeing yesterday in San Francisco (including an unexpected wonderful choral service at Grace Cathedral, which was a visual and aural treat, even for this unbeliever) I caught the overnight flight to JFK but only managed 1 hour’s sleep. I went straight into our offices on 3rd Avenue at 9am. Let’s just say I’ve been finding it hard to string two sentences together in any logical sequence. Add to that, falling asleep in the middle of conversations and then waking myself up again with a loud snore, and it’s a wonder people stayed in the room with me. Oh, the joys of international travel.

Still, despite those difficulties, I’m finding that NYC has got a real buzz to it. Also, I finally met in person someone I first encountered through our mutual business blogging. You never know if someone is as good in person as they are in a structured communication, but I had nothing to worry about. And, if things pan out right, we could do some business together. There’s method in this madness, folks.

Right, next stop, Harry’s Bar and then a genuine New York Grill. Who needs sleep!

In what seems to be a very low-key anniversary, today (Sunday) Silicon Valley marks the 50th anniversary of its putative founding. The San Francisco Chronicle has a historical piece on what most people take as the start of Silicon Valley - the founding of of Fairchild Semiconductor. The Chronicle also has some comments from several of today’s leading CEOs. Silicon Valley’s local newspaper, the Mercury News, runs a similar historical article.

There is an alternative view of history. The eight founders of Fairchild Semiconductors had previously worked for Shockley Labs, which claims its founding 18 months earlier was the start of Silicon Valley.

What’s behind the different opinions on when Silicon Valley started? The Fairchild startup was seen as the one which also brought in many of the classic start-up elements - venture capital, flat management, staff equity deals, casual dress, egalitarian organisational ethos, etc, etc. Shockley was old-school. So enthusiasts say it was Fairchild Semiconductor that really epitomises the start of the new order.