Which would you choose… the Kindle or the iPad? After using the iPad for almost two months, that’s a no brainer. But… there’s an underlying question that I wasn’t expecting and that’s surprisingly interesting (to me).

There’s a book I’d like. It’s available on both iBooks and Kindle. It’s the same price on each platform. Which do I buy?

The Kindle has the advantage of being more open… I can read on any computer (present or future, because I have confidence in Amazon’s willingness to port to new platforms if and when they’re available). I’ve already bought a bunch of books on Kindle (and none on iTunes), so there’s consistency for that platform too. I like the way I can manage stuff on the web with Amazon, but not enough to make me consider it a factor in the decision.

On the other hand, iBooks is a better experience. I can dim the screen for reading in the dark directly from the application (invariably I forget, then need to leave the app, set the brightness, then go back… and then reset it again in the morning). I also, and I can’t figure out my Kindle books on this one… know what freaking page I’m on when reading a book in iBooks! Of course, since it would be my first iBook purchase, it does give me an opportunity to try reading a full book on iBooks and compare it to my Kindle experience, and I think that last point is the decision maker, except for one thing.

I love Apple products. But… I don’t trust Apple as custodian of my content nearly as much as I trust Amazon. And, that’s holding me back.

I still buy CD’s so I can rip them myself. I buy MP3s from Amazon before I’d buy something from iTunes.

One last thing to consider. My friend Sal Saieva used his vacation and the book The Happiness Project to think about how e-readers can make book reading social. In a private email to me, he outlined how he’d use social reading to enhance his experience and get more out of his network, and out of his reading experience.

I don’t know enough about how the two platforms share highlights and such. I know on the Kindle I can see what other people are highlighting, and I kinda like that. I don’t know if Apple does that with iBooks. Neither platform however, let’s me share/discuss my own highlights (yet).

That would be an interesting point… except the book I’m thinking of is a pure personal read (The Children of Hurin) and so it wouldn’t make a good book for highlighting and sharing.

So, I’ve decided. I want to use iBooks for the “better” experience (admittedly subjective), but I prefer Amazon as a custodian of my content. So, I’m going to buy on Amazon. In fact, I suspect Amazon will be more aggressive than Apple moving to a “social reading platform” so on that factor as well, I’d choose Amazon. I’ll save my iTunes tester for a book, like a technical book, that would likely “expire” in relevance over time, so that I don’t care if it’s locked into Apple.

I will add one more point. The vendor that implements book sharing, gets all my business from then on.

I’m surprised by how “into” e-books I’ve gotten, and that I’ve become a big fan of Amazon’s Kindle as a result of buying the iPad. And finally, I’m surprised by how a simple equal priced book purchase decision has led me to realize that the e-book space has some interesting things happening in it that Apple and Amazon need to think about.

What do you think? Have you had this decision? How did you choose? What factors made you decide?

The other day Ron Schmeltzer tweeted how broken the RFP process is for buying software and his opinion of the process (he dislikes it). [Correction: Ron was talking about consulting RFP's, so the post below doesn't really matter. But, it did get me off my bum to write the post below, something I've had in my head for quite some time.] I quickly responded, asking him how he’d do it differently if he were a buyer. I have some thoughts on this, but was curious what he thought. Brett Miller responded with a blog post he wrote back in July as to the pros and cons of the RFP process.

In general, my opinion about Brett’s points are that the cons outweigh the pros in most every case, and that there are alternative ways to achieve the pros without invoking the cons.

I feel quite strongly that the RFP process for software purchasing is totally broken, and have an idea to replace it based on the work that some early founders of WebLayers did when I was selling Actional to them at Credit Suisse.

First let me explain why I think it’s broken. Then I’ll share my recommended fix.

1. RFP’s are biased. Typically, RFP’s are issued by companies after they’ve done some due diligence. That due diligence is “biased” based on who they spoke to, that bias finds its way into the form and function of the RFP. If all vendors have been involved prior to the RFP issue, that’s fine. But, if not… then the RFP is weighted towards those who have participated. And, that’s not always good for the consumer.

2. RPF’s only provide a partial view into what’s important. RFP’s often have hundreds of questions, some requiring complex answers. They’re meant to (1) get a complete comparison of relevant information, and (2) standardize the answers. Well, by the time a purchase is made and an implementation happens, the state of the various features will change, so knowing the current state isn’t necessarily helpful. I realize it provides a baseline, but that assumes that none of the vendors stretches the truth. Also, a simple question like “Do you support WS-Security” doesn’t have a simple answer, like “yes”. Usually, the answer is something between “no” and “sort of”… there are interoperability issues, minimum platform issues, which pieces of the standard are supported, and how the support is implemented. Second, standardized answers are not useful for a large portion of the questions… and in my opinion those are the important questions. What RPF writers really should want to understand are what makes each vendor unique, and how their philosophy around the solution aligns with the needs of the organization.

3. RPF responses are difficult to write, and even more difficult to evaluate. Finally, companies usually have a very short time to respond to an RFP making the responses less than the quality documents anyone would really like. I know it’s surprising to buyers, but the product information you would expect to be cut-and-paste is not often available. Even a prior RFP response that’s 3 months earlier is probably out of date. And, even the best “cut-and-paster” out there (I think I’m up there) is hard pressed to weave multiple cut-and-paste sources back together into a professional looking and consistent document. What about the review process? It’s time consuming and similarly biased. A grading system would certainly be unable to evaluate things like strategic alignment and uniques… and anything less is subject to the preferences of the reader… and what they happen to pick up when reading the responses. Try this. After all the responses have been read, put a simple 10 question list of features/capabilities in front of the readers… and ask them to match them to the vendors that wrote the answers. Do you think they’d remember which vendor wrote which answer?

One final point. The time/effort it takes for the teams to write the responses and the team to evaluate them all… isn’t there a better way to spend our collective time to get better technology out there faster and solve problems sooner?

So, what do I recommend?

Keep in mind that I’ve been almost exclusively at vendors/integrators in my career so admittedly I’m probably leaving some administrative/purchasing requirements out. However, I think the following makes for a great place to start.

1. Use analysts only to get a view of the landscape and make sure you know all the relevant vendors out there. Analysts don’t have the time to do much hands-on evaluation to validate what the vendors tell them. And, analysts have their own biases which may or may not align with your own. Save the analysts for when you have specific questions about relative vendor comparisons and market trends.

2. Along with a non-subjective checklist of standards and IT requirements (such as interoperability with existing systems/platforms, support in particular countries, number of SI’s trained in a product suite, etc.) deliver a set of use cases for how the product would be used. The use cases should include some long-term (and therefore less specific items) and some short term cases. The short term ones should really address the driving need for the evaluation. At least one use case should test performance and scalability in order to prove out the scaling model and help drive to a final configuration (and therefore a final project cost). Other use cases should include interoperability testing for integration to existing systems, and how the product gets migrated between development and production.

Slight aside. By checklist I mean there should be nowhere on this list to explain anything. Answers should be unambiguous lists, yes/no, dates, numbers, etc. This keeps it black-and-white. If it needs an explanation, it best to have the vendor answer in the context of the use case.

3. Ask vendor participants to fill in the checklist, give “essay” answers to the use cases, and then provide 10 items that they believe you should evaluate as part of the evaluation. These 10 items will be all you need to understand how each believes they compete with the other vendors, the vendors’ philosophical alignment to the problem space, and their unique value propositions. By the way, these 10 items should include use cases on how to test them, and an explanation of why they are important to the proposed solution. Of course, these 10 items might be non-technical… like they might be about standards support, or SI relationships, or whatever the vendor thinks is important.

I believe if we moved in this direction, we’d have a process that got customers what they need, faster, with higher quality results. And, the efforts used in the decision process (by implementing the use cases in a POC) would be directly relevant to deploying the solution, so once the process is complete, you’ve done more than selected a vendor, you’ve begun your implementation.

Early last November I sat with Chris Larsen over breakfast as he explained his perspective on Progress‘ market presence. Chris had been following Progress for years and had recently joined Progress as Executive VP of Sales. He summed up the challenges faced by the company with a story of a recent customer visit.

This big bank he visited had no idea who Progress was. They were a customer of OpenEdge, DataDirect and Sonic, and there was a big Apama deal on the table. We were late to the deal, and didn’t have the strategic relationship with the bank that we should have had as a long term technology provider. A relationship, I might add that was critical to beating some of the smaller startups competing against Apama for the business. Chris was frustrated that there were four sales teams in at the bank, none of which showed a whit of interest in working with the other.

Tons of reasons, obvious to anyone at Progress, as to why that was the case.

Just 8 months later, I’d like to share an experience. The experience was fittingly my final Progress performance.

I visited a customer in Dallas who is a long-time OpenEdge customer. I went with the account manager and his sales engineer. The account manager is a long time Progress employee from the Sonic/Actional business. The sales engineer, an old hand at OpenEdge development is now working selling the components of RPM and DXSI. I’ve seen him in accounts and had no idea he had an OpenEdge background until he told me. He competently positions and leads POCs around Actional, Savvion, and DXSI.

The informal discussion before the meeting started briefly covered Sonic, and the customer’s interest and experience with ESB’s. Then, we had the OpenEdge product team join on a Webex, share some new technology and roadmap… Actively showing this prospect that OpenEdge technology is alive and well. Based on the number of people that joined from the team, it was clear it’s also important to us.

Interestingly, there was a gentleman from the DataDirect side of Progress who has taken on a larger role in OpenEdge product management. Able to give some perspective on Progress from that perspective. Then, we were joined by someone from our indirect team, along with an OpenEdge partner whose product this customer used. Progress are taking an active role in participating in this relationship between partner and customer to get closer to the business problems and help execute. It was great to see the Progress direct and indirect account team members collaborating this way.

The customer now has a single account manager across all these products and aspects of our relationship, a feat that would have been unheard of 8 months ago!

The customer had joked earlier that no one has ever heard of Progress, but that recently a vendor who they selected for compliance had committed to supporting the Progress database. Would we like an introduction? You bet! Could this be a sign that change is in the air regarding their market presence?

Finally, I delivered the Actional message. Interestingly, the customer started me off by saying “Actional’s been around a while, hasn’t it?” I gave the whole 20+ year history of the VisualEdge and adapter technologies, the evolution to web services / SOA, the Westbridge merger that added a deep security core to Actional’s SOA Governance suite, followed by the Progress acquisition and all the fun that entailed (You’re part of Sonic. You’re not part of Sonic. Wait, you’re part of Sonic. No, wait…), ending with the evolution to RPM both as important to the market, and to the evolution of Progress.

It was amazing to give this story one last time. And, to give it in a context that so demonstrates the changes that have occurred at Progress under Chris’ leadership.

The changes that are occurring are exciting. I wish my friends the best of luck with the new Progress. It’s a small world. I say that with great authority having worked in 26 countries, including delivering the first Actional deal in about 8 new countries. (I swear this is true… I once got on a plane, and the stewardess said “hi David, oh, you got a haircut. Looks nice.”)

Thanks for the experiences, the friendship, and the inspiration. It was my greatest pleasure.

Peace.

…I would have resigned years ago.

After 26 countries, almost 8 years, and (depending on how you count) 5 significant corporate changes, I’m pleased to announce my resignation from Progress (Actional).

I made the very difficult decision to leave about 9 weeks ago. It’s been a whirlwind of self-reflection, networking, and interviewing. During this time I’ve learned a tremendous amount about myself, and about looking for a new role. I hope to share my insights now that my resignation is public.

I will be taking the next few weeks off to work on Where’s Your Heart? and my yoga practice, and visiting Oshita Sensei in Munich for a 3 day iaido seminar before starting my new role. Stay tuned.

PS  Please remember to connect with me if you’d like to stay in touch. Either Facebook or Linked In. And, if you’re so inclined I welcome Linked In recommendations.

This is actually the post I sat down to write yesterday.

Work with me here…

Pretend  you’re a merchant. Say… Farmers Insurance. And, let’s say you had a program to make your billing easier called “Auto Pay”. Auto Pay arguably offers more to you, as Farmers Insurance, than to your customers (oh yeah, it’s more convenient… right).

So, as Farmers Insurance you have my credit card… and every six months you submit a payment for my insurance premium (six weeks prior to it being due by the way).

Now, here’s the riddle:

You have to submit my name, credit card number, expiration date, and amount to the insurance company. You see that the expiration date is passed. You (pick one):

1. Call, email, text me to get updated credit card information, or better yet, tell me how to self-service this change on your website, or
2. Submit the information you know is wrong anyways, and when it bounces charge me $20 for the convenience.

Take your time, think… because it’s apparently not an obvious choice.

Seriously, not only did this happen but when I got the letter in the mail I saw that the card was expired and I called. It took me a week to make the call, but it was still over 4 weeks before my bill was due. When I called, I was informed there was a $20 penalty for a “returned payment”.

I swear, my response was “Wait, you submitted expired credit card information, were shocked when it bounced, and now are charging me? Why didn’t you just call me?”

In short, there was “nothing she could do” until I threatened to go to AIG. Then, magically there appeared a “premium customer support department” that had the authority to credit me back the charge.

The conversation got quite funny after that (maybe not for her) but I won’t bore with the details here.

I’d rather talk about the approach I discussed yesterday though. An approach that Farmers could use to make sure they avoid problems like these.

As part of the customer experience (the transaction) there are several processes… among them the renewal process. There are several events that impact that transaction (and the process)… the renewal event, credit card expiration event, and so on. There are supporting processes, like customer notification, and request updated information. There are “non-event events” (things that don’t happen that should, alert when they don’t happen)… like “we’ve notified the customer but they’ve not updated their information” (or something like that).

If Farmers Insurance approached their “business process automation” responsively (and responsibly), they’d look at the transactions and the events that impact the process… not just the process itself.

Keep in mind, it’s not just the frustration… my 15 minute call to the call center cost them money. Plus, they have followup (to credit me the improperly imposed fee). And, I removed myself from the Auto Pay so that I don’t have this problem in two years again, but that also means that they’ll likely get paid just a couple of days before the bill is due, instead of 6 weeks before.

And, on Auto Pay I hardly remember I have car insurance. Now, every six months I’ll get to make the decision… Do I pay Farmers? Or, do I shop around for a better price before I renew?

Think about what happened today? I left Auto Pay, I have the thought of switching providers in my head, I’ve had a bad experience (rightly or wrongly), I’ve still not paid my premium, and I’ve made fun of Farmers online. I’d say this is a step back in our relationship. What vendor, especially when it’s just a click away to switch, wants to move relationships backwards? They should be measuring my interaction with them and constantly making sure we’re getting more tightly bound, not less.

I wish we’d just stop delivering the US Post… just make everything electronic. Again, yesterday, I get a letter from Verizon saying “Thank you for setting up your online account. Your temporary password is XXX, you’ll need this when you login. If you’ve already logged in, please ignore this.”

Considering that I logged in immediately after creating the account, I wonder why they printed/sent this letter at all.

Actually… here’s why, and here’s how people need to rethink BPM (Business Process Management).

It’s quite simple. Verizon’s online account creation process probably ends after the account is created. At which point, they send a password in the mail (which, I think I also got a txt message of on the spot — by the way, I fully realized txt messaging is totally unreliable in the true sense of the technical way we think about reliable/unreliable/guaranteed messaging).

Their process is probably called “New Customer On-Line Account Creation” or something, and it needed a place to end. Therefore, once the account was created, they make sure the customer gets their password (even if it’s overkill… they want to make sure they’ve completed the process), and they’re done. Process complete… implementation complete… tick mark checked on to-do list.

I get it. It makes sense. But, it’s really funny to get letters that say “here’s what you need… but ignore this if you don’t need it” (it’s the second letter of this sort I’ve gotten from Verizon, and I’m only a customer for 3 weeks!).

But, let’s think about the underlying technology and approach to the process of delivering technology.

Verizon has looked at the Business Process… but not considered the “end-to-end experience”. Let’s call that “end-to-end experience” the transaction. It’s the way the customer experiences the business.

Considering that I logged in immediately after getting the txt message of the password, why didn’t Verizon know I didn’t need my (no longer valid) temporary password?

How about if I had not logged in? Why not encourage me to do so? Or, call to see why I would go through the trouble of setting up an account but not login?

These questions reflect events that affect the process and the end-to-end transaction. These events are critical to being responsive to the business. If they knew I logged in (event) they’d know that I not only setup my account (process) but started using it (transaction) and that my experience was complete.

What would that save Verizon? Well… for one, they’d have a more intimate understanding of their customer, controlling the experience during the first 30 days when an account can be canceled without penalty.

They wouldn’t have to print/send me a useless letter that gets dumped right in the trash. Maybe that doesn’t save them much, but last time this happened, they gave me a $25 gift card for “my troubles”. I hadn’t had any troubles.

Bringing together events, transactions, AND processes is not necessarily revolutionary. However, I can’t help but look around and wonder if it’s not revolutionary, then why aren’t there more people doing it?

So, for the first time in my life, I’ll be brief.

As many of you heard, I’m now the proud owner of an HTC Incredible phone on Verizon and an iPad. I’ve been so busy that I’ve hardly had time to do anything with either, but I will say this…

1. I don’t get what all the fuss about Verizon’s voice network is. I’m still at 1 bar in NYC most of the time. Though, I do hear everyone else’s crappy connection (and can tell it’s them).

2. Data is fast, and the browser on Android is nice.

3. Android is annoying, though in many cases it has more functionality that the iPhone (I had the 3G for a while), the UI is horribly inconsistent. For example, in Gmail there are three separate places to go for mail commands (like delete, reply, new message). And, it’s hard to figure out what it’s doing sometimes so takes quite a few clicks to do some simple things. And, it’s impossible to click mid-word… they need the magnifying glass thing that Apple has. That said, I freaking love Swype.

The biggest differentce between the two devices however is the most important.

I’m sure I’ll be OK with my phone, learn how to use it, and configure it exactly how I want it. HOWEVER, I believe the tablet market is different. I think for a tablet to be successful it needs absolute simplicity. Android on a tablet wouldn’t hold a candle to the iPad, and the market, I suspect, isn’t willing to twiddle it’s way there. They’ll wait… We need phones, we need laptops… but the fact that the tablet is an emerging/new market means that until it’s stupidly-easy to use, most people will just pass until vendors get it right. I believe Apple has in a big way.

The iPad is wicked fast, easy to setup, and for the time being, fun to use.

[disclosure: Long AAPL]

Got in very late last night after my drive home from Bedford. Not too bright this morning as a result. And, distracted. And, have start a 2 week business trip this weekend (so a little self-absorbed).

In any case, I followed an older man using a walker into the elevator. He was accompanied by his wife who still moved gracefully, if slowly.

As we hit the ground floor, he immediately shooed me through the door, as if to say “you’re faster than we are, go.” But there was more too. I could “see”.

I patiently waited for the lady to leave the elevator first, as is appropriate. Stubbornly ignoring his “shooing me” with my body language.

Once she was out, and without saying a word he shooed me again. I saw the same thing in his eyes as before. So, I deliberately turned and pushed the “hold door” button, and without a word told him “you’re not in the way because your old or slow”.

Got that awesome smile in return that you only get from babies and old people. You know which one I’m talking about? The one that is pure delight.

Now, I’m better equipped for today.

AT&T must surely be worried about something. They seem to be reassuring investors that hordes of iPhone users won’t leave AT&T as soon as there’s another option (here in the US). Today’s announcement that 40% of iPhone sales are to business users are probably meant to reinforce the comments last week about how difficult it would be for iPhone customers to leave AT&T (no matter how badly they’d want to) because most are on family or business plans that make it difficult to switch carriers.

I’m sure these announcements have nothing to do with the research note that suggests 6M iPhone users could defect to Verizon.

Of course, “just in case” they raising early termination fees and looking to the future of connected devices way beyond the iPhone.

Well, for a company that’s not worried about something, they sure are talking about it a lot! I must say, I was doubting that Verizon would get the iPhone soon… but all this AT&T activity is making me less sure.

Of course, I had to leave AT&T because I couldn’t get a signal in the wilderness where I live (New York City… but all the way on the west side of Tribeca), and stumbled back to T-Mobile because of the international coverage support. I’ll be switching to Verizon soon as I get clarity on Apple’s announcement next week. If not the iPhone, it’s the Droid Incredible for me, and I’ll be done with this silliness of phones that can’t make calls. Or, a phone without a browser (I currently use the unusable Blackberry Curve).

I’m quite tired of companies whose strength is they have the most locked in customers, or they suck the least. How about doing good business? Or, delighting customers with innovation, or intimate service, or something?

And, for those curious, if I have to go CDMA, when I travel to Europe I’ll work with Call In Europe to get local SIM coverage to my unlocked blackberry.

Let me first give credit for that phrase to Fred Wilson, a NYC venture capitalist who blogged about email overload earlier this week. I came across his post, and a post by Mark Suster in response (continuation) to Fred’s. These guys are speaking out about a real problem for people like us who want to be available and need to keep track of what’s going on.

The purpose of this post is mostly to say “me too”, and also to point out a couple of startups they link to that I’m excited to have found. I setup accounts for both, and am pleased they exist.

The two startups are:

Gist. I have to say, I had this idea a while ago (I’m sure I’m not the only one). I’m glad to see someone’s building it. Looks great, though admittedly I’ve only watched the video on their home page. I will check this out shortly. I hope they have a mobile app in the works.

Etacts. Don’t like the name, but what got me excited was Etacts’ firefox extension that appears to be Xobni for gmail. Of course, Xobni has been around a lot longer and is way cooler, but… having moved to a Mac two+ years ago, I’ve been Xobni-less for a while now. Etact’s web site doesn’t do it for me… but I’m hoping their plugin does. I like their ideas… and they can only get better over time. They’re getting at the “right” information, I hope they learn how to help me make email more useful.

Of course, these are both for Gmail. I get enough Gmail, especially with my work on Where’s Your Heart?. What I really need though is something for Mac Mail and corporate email. I do wish Xobni would help me.

Anyways, check out these companies and let me know what you think. I’m always looking for ways to be more productive.