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The Bloor Perspective: Executive e-learning, Sun's future and Sybase's AvantGo
This week Robin Bloor and his team of analysts provide their take on executive training dilemmas, Sun's chances and why database middleweight Sybase bought AvantGo...

By Bloor Research

Published: Friday 07 March 2003

When times are tough one of the first things to be taken off the corporate shopping list is training. For the organisations that follow this path, the consequences will be felt when the economy recovers, as they fall behind their competitors who are simply better skilled. The problem is that the executives making these decisions are probably the ones most in need of education. It is a frightening fact of life that as you progress up the career ladder, less training, rather than more, is given. With more responsibility, more information to assimilate and more critical decisions to make, it would be easy to think the opposite would be true. The problem is twofold. Organisations hire senior staff based on experience in their field. This experience may have been gained through a structured business environment with complimentary learning opportunities but these days it is more likely that such experience has been gained 'at the coalface'. From the executive's perspective, they want the job as it is the next rung on the career ladder and they're highly unlikely to admit to any lacking in experience at the job interview. It's only when they get their nice little office and comfortable leather executive chair that they realise they are ill-equipped to perform their new duties. Even in today's economic climate, 'failure' isn't a word that exists in the executive's vocabulary. So, what do they do? Carry on regardless usually. Whether it is technical, business or managerial skills they lack, nothing is going to stop them achieving their goals and so they will work away without asking for help. With the need for better corporate governance and transparent accounting methods becoming critical in today's post dot-com era, perhaps there is an opportunity to address the executive education issue from the top down. It's not just about putting an end to wildly unrealistic remuneration packages. Now there is a chance to make sure that those making the corporate decisions are equipped to do so by introducing executive certification programmes. With the development of e-learning techniques, this type of training could be effectively delivered in a blended environment ensuring that the execs work as they learn. For those without an MBA it gives them an opportunity to gain recognition for the skills they have, as well as understanding and addressing those they don't. For those lucky enough to have an MBA already, it simply acts as a top-up programme.

The benefits of such an approach to the organisation are clear - no more management screw-ups. As far as the individual is concerned they are clear too. But the question remains: will they be willing to put their hand up and ask for help or will their ego stop them?

*Sun's art of war* Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy made a number of interesting announcements recently. As might be expected the Sun CEO was keen to point out how popular Java is compared to Microsoft's .Net, and pointed out that he's convinced that Java will continue to be found close to the heart of many developments, including web services and security (smart) cards. However, for all of the Java talk it is clear that within Sun, Solaris is still regarded as the crown jewels. Much was made of the security features that have been designed into the operating system, along with its scalability and availability. With Solaris delivering almost 100 per cent gross margin, McNealy made it very clear that Sun will not be running from Unix. Indeed, it seems that Sun believes Linux may finally bring to Unix the 'respect' that the company feels the platform deserves.

McNealy once again took the opportunity to confirm that it only plans to provide "infrastructure software" and will not supply vertical applications. With this in mind Sun gave an outline on its plans for its N1 management platform. N1 is being created with the objective of managing the 'white spaces' between systems rather than as a replacement for traditional systems management tools. N1 is also looking to provide the capability to turn existing system silos into managed data centres, with a focus on operating with a Business Service perspective. The broad roadmap for N1 sees it enhancing its virtualisation capabilities during this year as Sun assimilates its recent software acquisitions. In the near future Sun will be confirming details of Project Orion, a new way of delivering and pricing software. And at the centre of Orion can be found a method of covering the release of all Sun software on single distribution, four times a year. All of the products included in the release will have been certified as 'integratable' while Sun hopes that other ISVs may wish to release their tools and applications via the same mechanism. It is clear that Sun has begun to address the need to revise the functionality of its software products and its licensing. This flexibility may prove to be absolutely essential, especially as McNealy expects that pretty soon everything, everyone and every animal will be connected and chipped with identifying security tags. Sun has challenges ahead as it seeks to maintain its extensive R&D budgets in the face of strong market competition but the company is confident of its future. Watch out for developments. *I haven't gone anywhere*

Last week saw confirmation that one of the internet's most widely recognised brand name organisations, AvantGo, has been bought lock, stock and barrel by one of the well-respected IT middleweights, Sybase.

AvantGo solutions has become one of the web's most widely deployed mobility tools with the MyAvantGo service having over seven million registered users. AvantGo has attracted many users with its offerings that supply information and content to PDA devices for both businesses and individuals. In many respects the company has managed to become almost a web standard as the means to replicate news information and content to mobile devices. It is readily apparent why both the technology itself and the large subscriber base should have proved attractive to Sybase. iAnywhere Solutions was formed as a subsidiary of Sybase in May 2000 to provide mobile, embedded and workgroup databases and mobile middleware solutions to the emerging mobile market. Effectively iAnywhere seeks to enable anywhere, anytime access to enterprise information. Currently iAnywhere supplies the SQL Anywhere, iAnywhere m-Business, Manage Anywhere and Mail Anywhere studio products. The tools are designed to allow business to make secure use of their corporate applications on mobile and wireless systems such as Palm, PocketPC and EPOC devices. The acquisition will see the majority of AvantGo staff joining iAnywhere Solutions at the company's Dublin, California headquarters. Sybase has indicated that it plans to operate AvantGo "in conjunction with" its iAnywhere Solutions subsidiary. It is easy to recognise how the two product streams complement each other and to see how corporate users of the services could benefit. Currently there are plans to 'leverage' the technologies in order to simplify the creation of database-powered web content. In addition iAnywhere has announced that it is looking to extend the already significant reach of the existing AvantGo offerings through Sybase's worldwide group of channel partners. It is to be hoped that Sybase allows AvantGo to continue servicing the many millions of individual users that make use of MyAvantGo to pull information onto their handheld devices. If iAnywhere and AvantGo can be combined effectively there is clearly much potential benefit for mobile users.

Bloor Research is a leading independent analyst organisation in Europe. You can find out more at www.bloor-research.com or by emailing mail@bloor-research.com.