For each one of these events, I wanted to write a blog but unfortunately after 24th hour of a day, clock is reset for the next day and cycle repeated. And today, due to the heavy rain in Michigan my pre-quarter final cricket game got cancelled and got free few minutes and hence this blog post.

By watching the significant events in recent past, it is evident all the tech dinosaurs are roaming wild to avoid the next big tech asteroid.  In current market, it is a big business puzzle to predict the predator and prey due to growth acceleration rate in terms of consumer adoption in the technology segment. Lots of companies were formed in a garage with a simple idea and some of them were successful by simplifying the original idea and became a giant, and soon, it is worth for billions. Most of the overnight multi-billion dollar companies do not manufacture goods; do not provide a tangible service and hence very vulnerable for next big simpler idea.

Recent trends have been proving the 200 year old economics theory needs fundamental change. The economic value is not only measured by goods and services but by a geo-cosmic fiber created by invisible social network.

Dominant player in the technology company map is rapidly changing and player who is of size of a continent soon becomes unnoticeable island and vice-versa.  All recent activities in the technology segment are all about positioning to the uncharted journey of consumer trends. We wish we have a magic lens to preview the future but we don’t. We understand and agree no tool or process or person can predict the future precisely but people are capable of approximate or define it.

How do we approximate the future?

Keep in mind few concepts.

• Timing is everything.
• Learn history and study current.
• Unleash the core and its dependencies.
• Connect the dots.

Using the above concepts, how do we approximate the future of disk storage market segment?  It will become a 30-40 page research report to completely answer the question. So, the approach is to scratch the surface to provide an idea how to approximate the future with an example.

There are few dominant players in the storage industry like NetApp, EMC, IBM, Hitachi and etc. Today the storage is based on longitudinal magnetic recording or perpendicular magnetic recording. The limitation of this recording methods are competing requirement of read, write and stability. The size of storage unit using this technology ranges from 130 gb – 1 tb in square inch. The next generation recording will be based on shingled magnetic recording, bit patterned recording or thermally-assisted recording or combination of bit patterned and thermally assisted and over comes the limitation in the current recording methods. The storage unit size will range from 2 – 10 tb in square inch.

All the current, future magnetic and thermal recording is done by set of semiconductors. There are set of companies manufacture those semiconductors that are used in manufacturing the storage units. The trends of semiconductors are based on the advancement in the quantum physics and solid state physics. The trends of the solid state physics can be studied by research made in academia by monitoring the paper published in journals and forums (like carbon based semiconductors are emerging and future electronic devices like iPad will have almost zero mass and can be folded and kept inside a shirt pocket).  Connect all the above to trends of associated technology (quantum computing), problems faced by end users, problem introduced by the associated new technology trends, and etc. Being exhaustive in each step stated above will approximate the future of the storage industry.

All the current tech giants are performing the similar studies to define or approximate the future. They are defining their merger and acquisition strategy, corporate strategy, business strategy, collaborative strategy and competitive strategy. It has become more challenging due to fundamental change in economic valuation and hence the unreset in technology industry.

Time only can answer the actual results of these strategies of technology giants.

I wish I had more time to write less in this post.

For those future devices, which are currently in experimental labs, the key component is an information gateway. Information gateway will seek  relevant information for each user based on location, mood, and circumstance.  The information gateway are nothing but the next generation smart phones. These information gateway will replace personal usage of PCs and laptops.

Google strategy team stuck a good balance to compete in the current market with Apple iPhone, RIM’s blackberry and laid basic foundation for information gateway market.  Google launched Nexus one as their phone product today to consumer using Android operating system. Nexus one provides easy integration for all social networking tools and techniques. There are more detail comparison done between Nexus one and iPhone and this article focus is to study Google’s strategy and it’s alignment for future technology evolution.

Google’s strategy to provide options to consumer to select the service providers  invites more customer base. However, I’m not excited about its  pricing strategy. The device cost around $520 per unit. The pricing strategy will not let current iPhone users to migrate to Nexus one and also blackberry users will not quickly migrate to Nexus one since it does not focus more on running business application (like VIN locator, inventory management and etc).

Nexus one is an another great thing for Google but the unit price needs to come down..

How this is relevant to current auto industry?

Well, GM and Chrysler both have had faced a separate fatal accidents.  Both are utilizing their capacity, capability and utilizing it effectively. When it comes to survival, as Maslow theory in the management suggests, your basic needs becomes top most priority and enlightenment are out of focus.  The decisions and execution made in last few weeks generally would have taken decades in their corporate culture. Executive management totally understand how to move forward. With assistance with auto task forces, concessions with unions, agreement with debtors ,reduction in  dealer network, dropping a brand, focus on fuel efficiency and quality  are good signs for a great recovery.

Why a great recovery waiting for them?

Four years ago, US market sold 17.5 Million units per year. This year, industry is struggling to sell 10 Million units. The average car age in America today is 9 years old.  Car purchase is the second biggest purchase a consumer would make after the American dream of owning a house.  Consumer confidence is the key and it is and it will continue to gain slowly for next 9 months and rapidly after that.  The credit market is far better than it was 6 months ago with enough capital infusion to credit market. Introducing better credit standards, oversight and governance, the credit market is stabilizing. The moment a person believes their jobs are safe, the consumer confidence in stock market, retail purchase, credit market will raise and the consumer is going to donate their 10 years old car to charity and buy the fuel efficient (Hybrid, Diesel, Electric) car. Both GM, Chrysler are making tough choices now and getting  ready to meet the huge market demand in 18 months.

Until then, sit tight and be part of the touch choices and move Detroit to new 2011++ future.

Yes I hear you.., I have not written a blog for almost a month.. that is mainly due to my last few weeks focus on completing  the graduate course on Linear Algebra. I had my finals yesterday and thinking about, should I take Dynamical Systems and Choas theory in summer. It will definetely help to model the current economical situation!!!

Here are my out of the box sustainability ideas to keep the icons alive:

• Ask U.S Government to provide defense contracts to manufacture big trucks, small trucks & jeep
• Send the highly paid sales VPs to meet the defense ministers of countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Finland, Norway and etc to get defense contracts to manufacture trucks and jeeps
• Big three should collaboratively compete. Follow Nash equilibrium. Let Chrysler only make minivan & jeep, Ford only make truck and GM only make SUV & Sedan.
• Ask U.S government to subsidize gas price for next 2 years. That is the price of gas will be fixed as $1.50 for next 2-3 years.
• Establish American Auto Research firm (like Routeone) with the goal of producing a blue print to manufacture 80 miles per gallon car in 2 years. (WE CAN DO IT!! YES, WE CAN DO IT) Hire a quantum physicist as the CEO of AAR.  The guy who understands quantum can do anything!!
• Change the culture. I heard, group of highly paid employees work really hard on a presentation for weeks (sometime months) to present and please a small set of executives. Cut the crap and ask everyone to relate their work to bottom line. Ask employees NOT to do a task if it does not directly relate to customer, product, cost, revenue and quality. Need strategic minded ,practical leaders deployed across to transform each division in each company

The question is: What is the apt size of an enterprise architecture team for an organization?

Consultant Answer: It depends..

Consultant answer is correct.

The real question is: What are the factors used to determine size of an enterprise architecture team in an organization?

The list of enterprise level factors used to determine the size of an enterprise architecture team.

• Number of products/service provided by the organization
• Revenue of the organization
• Profit of the organization
• Business Process maturity of the organization
• Finance & controlling maturity level

The list of IT factors used to determine the size of an enterprise architecture team.

• Number of people (including employees, contractors, consultants, out sourced) and their ratio
• IT budget and Finance management controls
• IT Process and system maturity level
• Enterprise architecture adaption rate (or EA maturity assessment)

Based on the above factors the EA team can be classified as large, medium and small. Large is of team size of 50+, medium is of team size between 15-50 and small is of team size less than 20. Let me emphasis the small EA team. I believe majority of the corporation will come under this category and let me expand on the small size of EA team.

Organization structure for a small size EA Team:

Chief Architect (or manager of EA team) should directly report to the CIO. Along with EA function, IT Finance management, IT Security, SOX controls, vendor management functionalities also should come under the same small size EA team.

(Double click the image to zoom..)

The technical architects are broadly divided into

System/Product architect
Domain Architect
Solution Architect
Applied Architect
Enterprise architect

Based on the architect characteristics, the types of technical architects shall be divided into the generalist and specialist. The specialist focus on one specific area and the knowledge acquired and possessed by the architect is deep. Where as the generalist, knowledge acquired and possessed in a set of areas is broad.
System/product Architect

System/Product architect are the generalist, responsible for the cohesive architecture solution of the system or product. They have equal strength in the both technical and business area. Plays a vital role to bring all the stake holders together and ensure all the stake holders concern’s are captured methodologically, formally documented and validated. Assist the project manager to make the management decision and makes key technical decision for the project/system/product. Brings all the technical architects, development teams, system analyst, and support teams together to ensure the cohesive architecture is defined to meet the stake holders concern and ensures the defined architecture is implemented. The system architecture validation is done by using the user case scenarios. +1 view of the architecture. The architecture verification is done through reviews.

Domain Architect

Domain architects are the specialist, responsible for the architecture solution for that domain. The domain architect is an abstract definition and there are various domain architects. The domain architects specific to the web development projects are

• Application architect
• Data architect
• Information architect
• Integration architect
• Security architect
• IT Process architect
• Infrastructure architect
  • Network architect
  • Server architect
  • Web run time architect

Solution Architect

Solution architecture team is the set of specialist working together to research and seek solutions for a specific problem.

Applied Architect

Applied architects are match makers. The applied architects have the known set of problems, solution and context. The architectural patterns are applied to the system or product. The architectural patterns includes to the process solution or methodology for the implementation and its style.

Enterprise Architect

Enterprise architect are responsible for defining the holistic architecture solution for the entire enterprise.

I believe this has a value to anyone who wants to become an enterprise architect. This state transition is an ideal road map to become an enterprise architect. When I attended a Gartner conference recently, I informally bounced this idea with fellow enterprise architecture managers, chief architects, chief strategist and most of them agreed that this is the ideal road map for developing enterprise architect talent in an organization.

The real meaning of success is making an impact and enjoy what you do every day – Dr. Ralph Shrader , Chairman & CEO of Booz | Allen | Hamilton. This concept applies to all the jobs in general. The Enterprise architects in the IT organization are the roles have very high likelihood of making an impact to the IT organization. If you want to be a successful Enterprise Architect and make an impact to the organization, understand the EA, navigate the organization, add value to stakeholders and ENJOY doing it every day.

Sometimes the reasons would not be legitimate reasons. The project teams do not want take risk by adapting new technology to their project. Could be due to, cost of the resources in the technology, creditability of the EA team, unknown reasons.

It is non technical problem and it is more organizational political problem. There is no logic directly required to solve this kind of problem. When no logic is followed on purpose, then it becomes logical. This topic deserves a separate blog posting. (Topic: ” No logic on purpose is also logical”)

In this case, Delphi technique is one of the best technique to understand why EA recommendation is not accepted and followed. By engaging on the informal discussion with the various stakeholders in the organization and correlating it would provide the insight on the real motive of the key stakeholders for not following the technology road maps.

The technology road map is an example. There are many areas this technique would be followed by EA and IT strategist. There are numerous area where the similar problem exist, delphi technique is a best way to go around and get into the crux of the problem. EA should be mastered in this technique to be the best EA and provide the greater value to their internal customers.

1. Formation of IT Strategy – In collaboration with senior executive management team, create the IT organization vision, mission,strategy map (representation of strategy),alignment with corporate strategy and other functional strategy like sales & marketing, accounting and etc
2. In collaboration with the senior executive management team, create the organization goal (or strategic theme/focus for the given year), theme owners (senior leadership), set of performance measures for each theme, targets for each measures,
3. Balanced Scorecard – Set of initiatives, initiative managers, their plan towards the initiative. (Balanced scorecard can be managed using software as a service solution from vendors like Palladium. It is very cost effective approach instead of having few resources in the PMO team tracking the status of the initiatives for the entire organization )
4. Strategy focused organization – Aligning the IT organization to the IT strategy. Ensure the employee goals are aligned to the IT Strategy. Ensure the structure of the organization supports the IT strategy. It is also called sourcing strategy.
5. Strategy communication – Continuous communication of the IT strategy and progress being made by the organization towards the IT strategy to business teams & IT teams. Via bulletin boards, brown bag session, departmental town halls, organization town halls