Common Threads of Technology


Technology enables you to do things differently.

Let's take the Internet. We're out of the hype of the Internet bubble, which claimed, "Everything about your business has changed." Some things haven't changed - commercial enterprises still care about revenue and profit. Those that didn't are out of business.

What has changed fundamentally? The Internet was and continues to be a profound technology whose potential is just beginning to be realized. To see how our company has harnessed the changes in technology through time, let's look at our own technology as a case study.

As a startup, PeopleSoft envisioned two things:

Simplified User Interface

Client/server systems could make a vast improvement in the user interface - the prior generation of systems was mainframe systems that used a character-based 3270 display. The whole interface revolved around code values that required operators to undergo long periods of training to master. Navigation revolved around memorizing "transaction codes" to move from one screen to another. With the emergence of the Windows environment, we saw the possibility of deploying systems that could use menus to allow for simple application navigation, and the Windows user interface that no longer relied on code values, but rather let users interact with the system, naturally selecting options without requiring codes. This great user interface enabled many more people to interact with systems without having to attend extensive training classes to learn arcane navigation techniques and memorize code values. Mere mortals could now use applications.

Quickly Adaptable Systems

Mainframe systems were unable to adapt to business changes quickly. They had been built using large amounts of COBOL code that was inflexible and unable to adapt to change. Every IT organization had an infinite backlog of system change requests. With a quickly adaptable system, you could make changes at the speed of business changes - your applications became business enablers instead of being boat anchors holding you back.

Recognizing the two fundamental benefits that the new client/server technology could solve provided the basis for the products that our company produced. It was this technology that enabled our company to become a successful startup company and mature into a billion dollar organization.

Yet, when the times change, you have to be prepared to walk away from what made you successful. In our case, the client/server technology we pioneered was just an enabler to create business applications that enabled our customers to run their organizations more efficiently and effectively. The client/server applications were our roots - they were our legacy. But if we hadn't been prepared to move on, they also would have been our demise.

We recognized that a new paradigm was being created by the emergence of the Internet. It was a technology that enabled a universal method of accessing business systems - available to all employees, all customers, all partners, and all suppliers. And best of all, it was a technology that was ubiquitously deployed - it didn't require anyone to install applications for their use. This technology would allow us to create whole new business solutions that could be deployed to a much wider audience than we had reached before.

Yet this was a risky adventure: We had to be prepared to say that all of our applications were obsolete - that they all needed to be replaced. We had to convince the naysayers in our own organization that the new world was going to be a better place. We had to answer such queries as, "We've been working on this technology for 12 years and have perfected it. Why are we moving to an unproven model that puts our applications on the Web - a technology known for intermittent performance and questionable security?"

Working with the visionaries within our organization, we were able to tackle these objections one by one - to prove the technology could stand up.

We tackled security by showing how the new Internet technologies could replace existing technologies. Encryption provided by the browser was used to protect confidential data. Directory servers allowed the users to have single-sign-on capabilities enabling them to have one user ID and password to access all systems. This improved security because users had only one password, which they could memorize and not have to write down. This reduced costs because IT had only one repository to maintain, not dozens.

With respect to performance, scalability, and reliability, we saw the future as being the deployment of not only hundreds of internal users, as client/server systems had been, but thousands of partners or suppliers, and tens of thousands of customers. We tackled performance and reliability through a server architecture that was efficient. As user demand increased, you simply added hardware to match it. Reliability was provided by having redundant servers that could take over when any other server failed.

We revisited the whole user experience and realized we had two choices: The cheapest one was to simply port the Windows look, feel, and functionality over to the Web. Or we could reengineer the user experience to match the Web metaphor. We choose the second alternative. We reasoned that the value of the Web was our ability to deploy our applications out to everyone - every employee, every partner, every supplier, and every customer. To deploy universally meant that the user experience had to be intuitive to users whose everyday experience was the Web. Applications had to require no formal training courses. This meant a complete rewrite of the applications to be pure Internet applications, not "Windows on the Web," like some of our competitors.

Our company spent $500 million to make these fundamental changes to our technology. We raised our R&D spending to 27 percent of our revenues in an arena where our peers spend 8 percent to 15 percent on R&D. What enabled us to be bold enough to bet the company on this strategy? This action came about because all the organizations within the company got behind it: The sales organization saw the competition as the emerging startups that were Web-based; the product strategists saw this as an enabler to change basic business processes with ubiquitous access; our customers saw the possibilities for lower costs because supporting a browser was 90 percent cheaper than installing code on a client.

Ultimately we had a good understanding of our mission as a company. History shows that companies that don't really understand their business miss evolving as technology changes. For example, the railroad companies thought of themselves as railroads and didn't realize they should have been thinking of themselves as transportation companies. They missed out on these possibilities and didn't transform their business. At our company we realize we are in the business of delivering technology-enabled business solutions - we are not a client/server company. We also learned from history - none of the vendors that were predominant in the mainframe era made it into the client/server era. They didn't have the will to change. The new way to do business solutions in the new world was to do it on the Internet, and we had to get there.

Maintaining a technology lead is the delicate balance of establishing how the technology can change your business and having the vision and will to completely transform current practices. This requires working with all of the parts of your organization and crafting a common vision of the future.

A CTO's most obvious sign of success is keeping his or her job. The criteria involve asking basic questions: Are we staying current with technology? Are we perceived as a leader with our product and our technology? Are we moving forward, or are we becoming a legacy player? Are we working more efficiently? Do we have better products that meet the needs of our customers? Are we enabling people to thrive in business with the technology that exists today?




The CTO Handbook. The Indispensable Technology Leadership Resource for Chief Technology Officers
The CTO Handbook/Job Manual: A Wealth of Reference Material and Thought Leadership on What Every Manager Needs to Know to Lead Their Technology Team
ISBN: 1587623676
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 213

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