Platform Wars III: Android vs IPhone vs Blackberry

As I read all the news on the G1 Android, it reminds me of the platform wars (Windows vs Unix) and the browser wars (Netscape vs Microsoft and now Microsoft vs Firefox vs Chrome). Mobile is truly maturing into a competitive environment for application delivery and today's battlefield clearly is IPhone vs. Blackberry vs. Android.

I'm not an expert in mobile technology, but I am intrigued on how all this will shape up. Has Microsoft lost another delivery platform - again? Sure feels like it! Who will really win over the development community? Apple and Google fully understand how important it is to win over this community by ending up with the best and most far reaching applications. This battle feels very much like the old and continued debate on Windows (more open, larger development community) vs Mac (clearly the choice of designers, editors, and other UI enthusiasts). Wanted: a thorough study of the development complexities, opportunities, features, and costs working with the SDK's for these platforms.

How will enterprises and publishers prioritize and invest in another - day I say 'media delivery device'? Let's face it, how many people on your commuter rails or buses stare down at a mobile device vs. a newspaper or a magazine? The naysayers will question the revenue model, the size of the audience, complexities in the technology, and whether mobile devices are truly ready for application and content delivery. Feels a lot like 1996, 1997, 1998.... when I was selling internet applications to newspapers that did not believe or fully grasp how quickly web competitors would steal their readers and revenue away from print.

Is the Android launch the tipping point to increased investments in mobile applications? Or will it prove to be a platform for geeks? Remember folks, Google Search was once an application for techies - but it got a lot better, went mainstream, and became the delivery platform for a massive revenue stream. Anyone taking odds?
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What is Business Exchange


Just over a year ago, I joined BusinessWeek to lead the technology efforts around a new product called Business Exchange. One year and many agile development cycles later, the product is live and gaining activity.

Business Exchange started with a simple vision statement. Aggregate content from business oriented sources, organize them into business topics that users can create, and prioritize the most important articles based on user activity. If you visit the Business Exchange home page, you will see this working with newsworthy topics like Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Credit Crunch as the most active along with community favorites like Social Networking, Apple, and Business Law.

But Business Exchange goes beyond that simple concept. We all read, bookmark, and share articles as a business activity and we use browsers, bookmarking tools, and RSS readers to help us with these tasks. But by using Business Exchange, the articles that you save or comment become part of a personal knowledge base. I use it personally to capture articles of interest in topics like Agile Software Development, SaaS, and Travel 2.0. Also, I get to see the best articles based on the actions of a business community and network with the topics' top contributors.

Do you believe in the phrase, "you are what you read"? Your profile on Business Exchange highlights your most recent contributions and top topics. It is your business persona and if you're looking for a job, a contractor, or a small business owner, then this tool can help you promote yourself based on your business interests. The application also allows you to connect with your LinkedIn profile. See my Business Exchange profile.

But the best part of this product is like the articles, topics, and community will change over time, so will the product. As part of our agile cycle, we are making frequent releases of new features and enhancements to the product.

So what's your Business Exchange topic?
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Top 7 Ingredients to Establishing an Agile Development Practice

More and more teams and companies are considering agile processes, SCRUM, Extreme, or hybrids to either pilot new initiatives or to establish the practice. Unfortunately, adopting agile is often sponsored by the Development Team and they can easily underestimate the organizational changes and boundaries needed for success. Below are seven key ingredients to kicking off a successful agile development team and process.

1. Strong business sponsorship is needed to uphold the process and insure the team gets the support it needs.

2. Separate team with new talent - It often helps to pilot the approach on a well chosen project that is staffed appropriately. Because agile is a social process, bringing in leaders on participants that have experience working on agile projects is highly recommended.

3. Some Freedom on new technologies - Practicing agile on projects that have too many technology or legacy constraints may hinder success.

4. Establish social environment early - Co-location, daily standups, team commitments are all social and require time to mature.

5. Insure transparency through tools - Personally, I don't buy into the cards hanging on the walls. It works for the team, but provides no information to external stakeholders. Tools also help establish the backlog, measure burndown, track iteration productivity and help with documentation.

6. Bring in agile coaches, but manage them well - The agile manifesto is one page in length and while there are many books on agile and SCRUM, tailoring the process to your organizational needs requires time and experience. Agile coaches can help mature a team or process, but keep in mind that they are just that - coaches - and ultimately you have to figure out what is required in your organization.

7. Recognize non-agile dependencies - R&D, legal, infrastructure, and other dependencies may be difficult to tie directly into an agile process.
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Larger Scale Agile Development

Back in January, we had one team at BusinessWeek practicing agile software development. The team was successful completing iterations, demoing to stakeholders, and releasing product to a growing audience.

We then needed to scale. We added a second team and a third team offshore. We segmented the work so that there was minimal overlap between teams. Things got a little more complicated because we had longer term deadlines and deliverables that needed planning and management. But we managed priority changes and integration issues to get a product out.

I then saw this post Agile Project Management: Lessons Learned at Google that I found on the Agile Software Development topic at Business Exchange that gave me some new ideas on scaling agile. It covers agile release planning, scrum of scrums, and a number of other advanced topics. It's a long video but worth watching if you're a senior technologist managing multiple agile development teams. What surprised me most is that Google practiced these larger scale practices before they establised iterative agile practices. Makes sense for Google given their scale....

Next week, I will be at SIIA's Global Information Industry Summit talking about my experiences moving teams from Waterfall to Agile. I'll share more insights here as I build up the presentation.
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About Isaac Sacolick

Isaac Sacolick is President of StarCIO, a technology leadership company that guides organizations on building digital transformation core competencies. He is the author of Digital Trailblazer and the Amazon bestseller Driving Digital and speaks about agile planning, devops, data science, product management, and other digital transformation best practices. Sacolick is a recognized top social CIO, a digital transformation influencer, and has over 900 articles published at InfoWorld, CIO.com, his blog Social, Agile, and Transformation, and other sites. You can find him sharing new insights @NYIke on Twitter, his Driving Digital Standup YouTube channel, or during the Coffee with Digital Trailblazers.