Georg Edelmann's Weblog Georg's Weblog

I recently purchased a rotary disk mower to take care of our horse pastures. Here's how the sales went. I drove down to our local agricultural dealer and told him I need a tool that allows me to mow approx 10acres of horsepasture in a reasonable time. I expect to be able to cut plants of up to an 1 inch in diameter. Our fields are reasonably flat with some stones (after all we live in the "Granite State"). Guess what happened next. The sales guy, Phil, showed me a brush hog that exactly fits my specifications. We shook hands and concluded the deal. Phil, who just lives up the road from us, offered to drop the hog at our place the same night. He did so and I was mowing the next day. You probably think now : "So what ? this happens every day. What's the point".

It's not so much what happened, it's more what did NOT happen. Phil and I never discussed the details of how the hog gets connected to the tractor. Why ? Because we know that's a standard. It's called a type 1 three point hitch according to ISO standard 500-1:2004 . There was no integration cost, or customisation effort, or adaptation necessary. It just connects.

Today, I read that Telco carriers allocate on average 50% of their IT budget on integration and that for certain projects this can go up to 90%. This is despite all the great work that goes on with OSS/J. This means they pay for a e.g. trouble ticket application license + computer + storage + service, and spend the same amount again on making them work with what they already have. "IT connects", I guess not in this case yet.