Wikipedia, it's Good Enough

I love Wikipedia. I use it so often that I have incorporated the Wiki search plug-in on my Google desktop (see below).

What I find so addicting about Wikipedia is that I can get instant definitions and knowledge jump off points for any topic, person, system, concept, ideology, song or whatever else. Sure, it's not always definitive information, but like everything else on the web, it's "good enough".

The Good Enough concept drives the web (for better or worse). In the development world I come from, slow and flakey user interfaces (the browser) would have been grounds for dismissal. But something happened in the web-ifying of the masses, they seemed to take the flakiness in stride, it was "good enough".

So goes much of the data on Wikipedia. It's good enough for 90% of my queries. If I don't trust the exactness of the information found, it gives me just enough information to enhance my understanding of the topic as well as provide me with the terminology I may need if I wish to continue my research.

Sometimes, you just want to know what time it is, you don't need to know how to build a watch. Wikipedia fits that need.

More Microsoft

My CIO forwarded this article on Microsoft's demise.

It's an interesting article that has some arguable points. It seems to me that Microsoft's problem is the same as most other established, big businesses: Their own success forces them to spend too much organizational energy on protecting what they have instead of taking risks to create something new. Ironically, some trends I read show that business is ready for Web 2.0 functionality but isn't comfortable buying such technology from self-proclaimed hackers such as this article's author. They would rather buy from a Microsoft, HP or IBM (sorry, I don't have the reference for that).

Additionally, maybe the small office loves the Mac and techies love open-source but I'm not so sure they are anywhere near as manageable in the magnitude of 12,000+ units such as we have here at MHC. Wintel has already won that war. It may be hip and trendy to tote a Mac but I believe the TCO numbers come down on the Wintel side when we're talking high quantities (I'm not a Mac basher. I love Macs and installed a bazillion of them at Howard Young Health Care in the early 90's).

Microsoft has the cash to reinvent themselves. They need to do some net-zero thinking to develop new strategies. But as long as they're beholden to Wall Street, it's going to be tough sledding to move away from the desktop application model that butters their quarterly bread. The computing impetus moved away from the desktop model and Microsoft missed that trend because they were too focused on making the desktop better; they just couldn't think outside the box.

But I wouldn't count them out yet. And frankly, it really doesn't matter to me who's name is on the technology we buy, rent or lease, as long as it satisfies the functional and managerial requirements.