Hi Anthony,
I appreciate that the docs are at an early stage but most investors will
want a 15-20 pager on the project with a 2-3 page additional executive
summary. I’m not sure that the proposed business plan format is appropriate.
Also, much of the website content is a bit too evangelical for my liking.
Things are said without necessarily being backed up. The CUBOS approach has
not been clearly described anywhere.
I’ll have a look at it. Also, some things are very unclear to me at this
stage:
1) who’s involved? (contributors, investors, sponsors etc.)
The group on MSN looks quite small when compared with the complexity of the
task)
2) what their roles are?
3) what their motives are?
Also, there are a hell of a lot of management tools that are much better
than MSN Groups. I’d adopt something like Moregroupware with project
planning, task management etc. We’ve done deployments for various IST
projects. E.g. http://www.securitytaskforce.org/
I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to be suggesting people, organisations
etc. However, my ability to make these suggestions is being impaired by
outstanding questions about the who where what how of Cubos technology and
organisation. Also, it certainly appears like there is a lot to do at this
stage. For example, the following page
(http://www.mxglobal.org/CubosSJ6/faq.htm) revealed much about the operation
of Cubos, Vector and Vectra. I’d love to know exactly how much of this has
been achieved. Many of the copyrights say 2002 so what exactly is in place
for Jan 2006?
However, based on what I’ve read so far. I have the following comments.
1) what webservice technologies are being used? Is there a SOAP interface
and is the REST paradigm used for service composition?
Is Vector technology licensable in itself? Where can I download a toolkit &
is the source open?
Can my developers work on it using J2EE or .Net technologies? Has it been
security auditted? Is it a true Grid with pooled hardware and software
resources gaining time-share across a networked system based on application
context?
2) Is MX2 not just another intermediate setting itself up a global exchange
like the commodities exchanges described in the FAQ. Is this basically an
eBay for services where businesses can effectively outsource a range of
back-office activities to a trusted provider? Sj6 seems to be…
3) Different jurisdictions will have different legal terms & conditions for
Cubos services. How do you propose getting around this?
4) Similar to 3, how do you ensure social equity of community members. How
is Cubos resistant to corruption & abuse? Ian Clarke (Irish lad who created
freenet) has long argued that anonymity should be protected to ensure
freedom of speech and communication. In business situations legal contracts
are put in place to enable process and task outsourcing. However, where will
liability lie within Cubos? How is liability limited across different
jurisdictions? Will insurance products be available for services users.
Arguably escrow services helped eBay gain acceptance. Dispute resolutions in
commercial contracts is often expensive.
5) How will trust be gained? Should you start with basic services like
fax-to-email and other such low-level vertical services and then work you’re
way up the stack. The problem with many regional skill exchanges currently
in existence are unrealistic expectations about price & complexity on the
part of both customers and suppliers and a proliferation of smaller
lower-value entities due to lack of trust and concerns about organisational
stability etc.
6) If San Juan is operational why are there no performance figures available
for this project? Perhaps there are but I couldn’t find any.
Some of the goals are very ambitious but I would recommend studying the
following information about telecomms information modelling as many of the
problems you describe have been solved by a friend of mine, John Strassner,
for commercial telecomms OSS deployments.
http://www.tmforum.org/browse.asp?catID=2008
IMHO SID is the bible as it’s the most complete management information model
on the planet. The benefits of using an accepted information model are
manifold but here are some
1) availability of sophisticated, open and commercial management tools which
will be deployed and tested in real-world commercial environments such as
telecommunications networks.
2) availability of profiles and policies for most commercial services which
will manage network and service infrastructure. E.g. VoIP over VPN profile
giving guaranteed QoS between project partners.
I also recommend studying information about different connection paradigms
from IONA and Intel
http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/57606.htm?page=4
Connection brokerages and connectivity orchestrators enable information
passage to be prioritised using middleware and management tools. Simply put,
the guy with the WiFi laptop will be told that he needs to upload files in a
timely fashion if he hasn’t already serendipitously transmitted files
through an accepting hotpot. This kind of Just-in-Time data comms is as
vital to supporting virtual organisations as any other element. However, you
still need a global reference model for all entities within your system and
a management system that can interpret and enforce policies across complex
and multifacetted tasks.
I guess it will all become clearer as I read through the comments on the
list.
Regards,
…shane
//=============================
// Shane Dempsey
// Managing Director,
// Gaisan Technologies Ltd.
// e: sdempsey@gaisan.com
// u: http://www.gaisan.com
// t: +353 (0)51 304224
//=============================
> —–Original Message—–
> From: anthony brown [mailto:periclesbrown@hotmail.com]
> Sent: 28 December 2005 15:26
> To: sdempsey@gaisan.com
> Cc: mpickelny@yahoo.com; cubos@groups.msn.com
> Subject: RE: Review of docs
>
> Yep- we look forward to the questions, Shane…..ignore the documents,
> just
> read the messages +
> the “model” web-site carefully. Try not to ask questions already answered
> in
> those 2 places.
> See ya later,
> Anthony
>
> >From: “Shane Michael Dempsey”
> >To: “‘anthony brown'”
> >Subject: Review of docs
> >Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 13:37:44 -0000
> >
> >
> >Hi Anthony,
> >I’m reviewing the docs the project has produced so far. I’ll send you a
> >longer email when I get the chance but I have lots of questions.
> >
> >Sincerest regards,
> >
> > …shane
>