This morning I went to an IBM presentation, I wasn't expecting much, so the first keynote speaker was a great surprise - really interesting to listen to, and he was apparently CIO of the year in 2004.. and is now unemployed in 2005. Awesome. The speaker of the 2nd presentation was pretty dull, but he did touch on an interesting point regarding websphere. So often when talking about websphere, and more broadly about this whole concept of "on Demand computing", IBM has made reference to electronic ordering systems, inventory management systems, and so on and so on. All the examples are always interesting, and the random stats about how much more efficient they become are very inspiring (etc etc), but I've always been unable to relate, given that none of my current clients have much to do with electronic stock management. The comment this speaker made put it all into context nicely - it was along the lines of the fact that what they were doing really had nothing to do with stock management and inventory control, and everything about making information readily available to those who wanted it, thats all.
It was a nice way to put it all into context.
Then this afternoon I got back to the office and spent the rest of my day playing about with apache/php/mysql - go figure.