I’ve seen firsthand the complicated, cranky monsters most companies have built to manage IT. And no, I’m not referring to the guys hiding among the servers who’ll kick you in the shins if you try to take away their green screen pagers. I’m talking about the dozens of different systems produced by multiple vendors all working together and making no two shops identical. I’m not saying this kind of infrastructure is bad, just a bit terrifying for anyone who has to manage it.  I believe that’s why our combined Alert Management and mobility solutions must always integrate across all major products including HP, BMC, IBM and any combination thereof. 

AlarmPoint Mobile Gateway’s ability to span integrations across any system is particularly exciting, as it enables mobile infrastructure management throughout an organization. It gives personnel the same range of actions in accessing, creating, approving, modifying and resolving IT events or incidents as they would have from their console. Users can browse system health, respond to an alert, walk through a work flow and take action to resolve events from their BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Treo or any other Smartphone. 

Read that again.  Any combination of service assurance system and service support system available on your Smartphone.  That includes our out-of-the-box partner products like BMC Remedy, HP Service Manager, HP Operations Manager and IBM Tivoli Netcool.

Rapid return of value today is important.  Integrations for all major software suites help our customers achieve accelerated resolution times ranging from 20-40% on every incident.  Those are big numbers.  AlarmPoint products do a lot to tame the beast of complicated IT infrastructure, and no, again, I’m not talking about Ted, the cranky engineer who only appears when someone leaves unlabeled sandwiches in the fridge.

To learn more about how AlarmPoint integrates with different software and how Mobile Gateway can positively impact your mobile workforce, take a look at our latest press release, or read about our integrations for BES, HP, IBM, and BMC.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of commercials featuring Tim Gunn, the steely-haired fashion guru generally beloved by my wife and reality-TV addicts across the globe.  I’ll be honest, I don’t follow his guidance, as anyone who follows me can attest. 

However, he’s come to my attention as the spokesman for Tide’s “Total Care” brand of detergents, a line of more expensive products that promises to keep your clothes looking newer longer.

I’ve noticed this marketing trend showing up everywhere: times are tough, money’s scarce, so instead of buying brand new stuff, spend a few extra dollars to take care of what you already own to make it better.

Sales of Tide are proving that the idea appeals to economizing families. The snowballing reduction in IT spending shows the idea has also occurred to businesses. Companies are concentrating on finding ways to make the most of the software they’ve got – attempting to make existing IT processes respond faster, cost less or provide agility to the business. 

That makes projects that accelerate and streamline existing systems particularly attractive. For example, instead of tearing out your existing help desk and change systems, use an Alert Management platform to make them faster. Instead of struggling to staff extensive monitoring systems, allow Alert Management’s Mobile Gateway aspect to mobilize your workforce. In a time when you’re probably stuck with the system you’ve got, anything that makes it function better should be looked into. As Tim Gunn would say, “make it work.”
 

Dear concerned Executives,
 
In the latest secret CXO newsletter and coupon book, many of you shared your fears about staying afloat in these trying times. I understand how you feel – the world can be a scary place when everyone starts hoarding their cash and snarling when you suggest you might like some of it.
 
More and more, it seems like the question of “will you give me a large sum of money for my product?” will be met with an unequivocal “no” and possibly some hysterical laughter.  I’m here to tell you that that’s a complete misconception.

The key to selling in this climate is to help enterprises become more agile and competitive by delivering real value to their business.  Isn’t that our job anyway?  Ah, a return to the renaissance of providing value.  Your customers, especially if you’re doing any business-to-business work, are looking to cut costs and probably reallocate staff.  When times are tough, they want to be tougher, leaner and faster. They’ll buy your product if you can understand their business and provide a real return on the investment of resources and risk.

The products I’m working on can do that: they make an organization more efficient and intentional.  Alert Management is often the missing link for businesses that want to do more with less. So to be successful in this economy, do what I do: find the place in your customer’s business that’s struggling and help them shore it up.  If someone finds a way to do that for my organization, I’ll buy their product in a heartbeat – it’s worth it to me to keep my business strong and efficient in the long run.

So that’s my advice, everyone.  Good luck, we’ll be stronger for it! 

Sincerely,
Troy

People are still getting paid to sit in a room and watch a screen. And not a screen with anything good on it, either – no movies, no iPod, no IM.  Any work is good work these days, but this job contributes nothing to the success or agility of the business. It’s simply a necessary evil. Someone has to keep an eye on the status of various system and applications. All around is buzzing modern technology that keeps banks, retail chains and vast telecommunications companies running, and yet people are still sitting at a console, waiting for the light to go red.
 
This would be an unfortunate way to spend your time in 1990, an alarming use of resources in 2000, and borders on criminally inefficient in 2009. Efficiency is the name of the game in a harsh economic climate, and it simply makes no sense to give a trained IT professional a console and tell him or her to stare at it to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Keeping employees watching for problems 24/7 is also extremely expensive. By reallocating one rotation team of 12 from their 24/7 monitoring team, a major European energy provider saved $750,000 annually.  This was an easy, welcomed change to the operation.  It just required that their notification system catch up to the rest of their technology.

Automation is key: if a red light comes up on a screen, automatically send the right person information about the problem so they can fix it. Have their contact, role and scheduling information in the system already. Then let them take responsibility for that alert from their mobile phone and, better yet, use a web portal to let them enter internal systems and take action to resolve the event. Even if it wakes a user up in the middle of the night, it’s still better than staring at a blinking screen that may – horror of horrors – not even have internet access.

To learn more about the kind of cost savings increased efficiency can create, check out my latest whitepaper, 5 Ways to Increase Operational Effectiveness and Reduce Costs Through Alert Management.

President Obama’s economic stimulus plan is currently pouring billions into local and state governments. A lot is going toward construction – highways, bridges, and your usual slew of New Deal infrastructure projects. I, however, think some of that money should go in a different direction: innovation, investment in increasing the agility of the American business and, of course, software.
 
Initially, buying new software doesn’t seem like the kind of job-making initiative the President had in mind; not a lot of shovels involved. But it would be an investment in our future: not in physical roads, but instead in technical infrastructure. Let’s take this sudden windfall and invest in the technology behind public services like schools, hospitals and social programs to help them work better, faster and cheaper.

Implementing Alert Management software would allow public sector organizations like local governments to automatically call or email residents to warn of anything from a terror attack to an overdue water bill. Schools could automatically send students SMS messages about emergencies or changes in schedule and parents could be notified in real-time of important announcements. Hospitals could send out thousands of emails to a blood donor registry in seconds and allow doctors to answer health questions and concerns from patients over their mobile phones.

The increased efficiency would mean millions in savings every year, and unlike other automation initiatives, it would not result in layoffs. All these organizations are struggling to hire enough people. Wasting precious employee time on manual, repetitive tasks helps no-one, and eliminating those tasks would allow staff to move to more productive projects.

Obviously, if government and public services start buying software, the IT industry would benefit, too.  As the CEO of a software company, I certainly can’t say this didn’t occur to me. But with IT spending declining at 9% annually and technology companies slashing jobs at an alarming rate, a combined push for buying new software and revolutionizing social services seems like it would be right up Mr. Obama’s alley.
 

It’s occurred to me lately that many businesses are treating IT as a burden. "All those systems! All those strange, pale people manning all those fancy machines! Just think of the cost of pizza and coffee for that department alone! It’s time to slash funding before all the money we put into IT drags the whole business down."

When it comes to IT, I often want to shake business leaders and say, “It’s your competitive advantage, don’t you see?!” Instead of treating IT as a money pit, companies should consider the fact that a fast, efficient IT organization is the foundation of an agile business. Cutting spending across the board for IT is like shooting yourself in the foot. Current economic conditions demand intelligent investments in systems capable of supporting a changing business.

In this market, new ideas cannot get bogged down in IT. The technology and reaction-time of a company have to keep up with the decisions being issued at the top and the technical problems that result from them. Change Management has to be swift. Incident Management has to resolve events before business impact. Service Management can’t get overwhelmed.

Investing wisely in IT – making it cheaper and more efficient without making it less functional – is how businesses can differentiate themselves from their competitors. It’s how you can be faster than everyone else. And that, surely, is worth the cost of pizza and coffee.

To learn more about how AlarmPoint’s Alert Management platform supports the business, take a look at my article in BMC’s latest thought leadership book: Viewpoint, Focus on: Business Service Management (BSM).
 

I am a BlackBerry man. Brace yourself, but I use a PC too.  I know, I know – the iPhone is very sexy if we get past the face print issue, but I’ll stick with my BlackBerry, thankyouverymuch. Now, I’m not knocking Apple – I like Apple just as much as the next guy, especially if the next guy also has a BlackBerry.  No, this is to discuss an iPhone innovation: the application.

iPhone (and soon BlackBerry) apps range from the very handy to the, well, to the very dumb.  There are so many, in fact, that while IT staffers aren’t thinking up the next big app or idly popping bubble wrap, they may pause to wonder why there’s no application to let them access and control IT systems from their smartphones.
 
In fact, there are companies that make software for that – though they’re certainly not available at the Apple Store. The problem with software you have to install on your phone is that every time there’s an upgrade to, say, BMC Remedy, your phone must be updated to maintain access. Then there’s the fact that the modern IT environment is complex.  When working through an incident or change you may need to access more than just Remedy.  What if you need mobile access to the service model in another system like BMC Service Impact Manager?  Whoops.  You’ll have to go all the way back to your console, effectively eliminating whatever time savings you could have created.

The best way to solve this problem is not with an app at all.  Sure, use the app as a backup if you’re in a 1950’s bomb shelter with terrible reception, but use it only when you have to.   IT systems need to be accessible with a mobile web-based interface that enables immediate, cross application access.

No installation needed – just a secure password – and you can access all the systems you need to resolve events anywhere, anytime. And, best of all, you can do it on your precious iPhone or, more importantly, your BlackBerry.

In recent years, outsourcers and managed providers have been doing great. MSPs who monitor, manage and resolve issues in a client’s IT infrastructure from their own command center, never having to actually step into the customer’s site, can be a big asset for companies seeking to lower in-house IT costs.

This rapidly growing industry is even getting a boost from the economic turbulence shaking some businesses out of their comfort zones.  Often times the need to reduce costs happens in-house and hiring an external vendor to manage certain areas of the business makes sense.  However, with more MSPs emerging and managing ever-expanding systems and processes, SLAs that promise proactive results are growing harder to fulfill.

Successful MSPs must find ways to become more proactive, handling a wide range of incidents faster and cheaper than their competitors. Implementing an Alert Management platform can widen the competitive advantage by making sure the right personnel are being alerted of the right events automatically. By doing so consistently and accurately, Alert Management ensures that an MSP knows about an incident before their customers and can resolve it quickly.

The additional visibility provided by an Alert Management platform can also help MSPs satisfy their client’s demands. Customers can receive proactive information into service impacts and every event is recorded and archived, every resolution stringently documented. The client can take a look and see their money being spent effectively and efficiently. As belts tighten and the MSP market continues to grow, that visibility and efficiency can be key to differentiate the creative service provider from the pack.

In my last post I described why Alert Management is essential for mobile employees. I also wrote about waffles. I recommend ample use of both for a happy workplace, but allowing employees to respond quickly and accurately to a problem using their mobile devices may be even more important than judicious use of syrup.

With more and more staff going mobile, finding and contacting them is only the first part of the efficiency equation. The second half is letting them resolve the incident without having to return to their console. This process is called Remote Action Enablement.

The time savings implicit in targeted notification is quickly chipped away when a mobile employee cannot solve a problem where they are and must either switch devices or move to a different location. To make real strides in efficiency, there needs to be solid two-way communication by which an engineer can be alerted to a problem, view all the necessary information, and then have access to the systems and applications required to solve it – all from their mobile device.

Of course, if there’s a potential dark side to the convenience of Remote Action Enablement, it’s security. Nobody wants to have that much information and access crammed onto a small, easily lost device. For that reason I recommend an enterprise keep this service online and password protected: accessible by BlackBerry, but not located on it.

A safe, secure Alert Management system is just as important as a flexible one. After all, depending on mobile devices is the way of the future, but no matter how advanced our technology becomes, there’s still a chance someone will leave their prized iPhone on the Metro, Tube or the football field … crunch.