Scalable Enterprise Buzzword Solutions 357
prostoalex writes "Need a scalable enterprise solution? You're in luck, as those three buzzwords have become so prominent in the technology industry, that they can describe pretty much anything, according to Associated Press. The article later goes on to blame Microsoft and Apple for 'dumbing down' the product descriptions in order to appeal to non-tech-savvy audiences. 'High-tech companies don't release products anymore, they provide solutions. And those solutions don't simply run a program or play a song. Instead, they enable experiences, optimize agility or make people's passions come alive', the AP article states."
Dumbing down product descriptions? (Score:5, Funny)
* Do not eat Xserve.
Re:Dumbing down product descriptions? (Score:5, Funny)
* Do not eat Xserve.
I see you have that First Post solution enhancing your lifestyle, congratulations.
Re:Dumbing down product descriptions? (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, if you look at the bottom of the page on the iPod Shuffle [apple.com], it says...
Solutions replaced products long ago (Score:2, Insightful)
So what (Score:5, Insightful)
To sell anything, you have to pitch the product to the person with the signing power. If your target customers are six year old girls you paint it pink and sparkly. If your target customer is a CEO/CIO + board of directors then you dress it up with buzzwords and phrases. Technical details are stuff these folk don't understand add confusion.
Re:So what (Score:5, Funny)
Yes they do, because today's world of scalable enterprise solutions everybody is an engineer! Just ask your local web engineer.
I've seen this go both ways. (Score:5, Interesting)
I also know of people who would make Dilbert's PHB look like a genius. I've seen one business with a division that was losing to a competitor in many areas, with their IT lag seriously hurting their situation. That business did not realize that their IT was causing a problem with customers, even though it was painfully obvious.
I have also met IT sales staff people who were reprimanded for giving specifics (such as cables, switches, routers, hubs, NICs, CDs, and licenses,) instead of using the term "solution" when presenting the cost estimate to the CIOs of companies who were interested in their product.
I think too many people have sat through too many marketing classes without learning anything, and this is the result. Sales people are instructed to sell a solution to a problem instead of the actual product, and a lot of CEOs and a few CIOs know they have a problem without knowing the cause, and just want a solution. Consequently, solutions have a higher margin than products, even if the product is exactly the same as the solution.
Or, I could be wrong, and PHBs are only a figment of Mr. Adam's imagination.
Re:I've seen this go both ways. (Score:3, Informative)
This just in: it is possible to post to Slashdot from parallel dimensions.
"I also know of people who would make Dilbert's PHB look like a genius."
That sounds more like MY universe...
"Sales people are instructed to sell a solution to a problem instead of the actual product..."
Actually (and I'm not trying to be funny here, not that I succeeded earlier) a good sales person is supposed to sell a solution to a problem rather than just a product. Th
Re:So what (Score:3, Interesting)
And if there is anything that causes me not to recommend a product, it is being unable to find decent information on the w
Problem #1 (Score:3, Insightful)
For example time after time again, we run into the perverse problem that PHBs don't just prefer bullshit bingo to technical specs. They think that technical specs _are_ pretentious bullshit buzzwords.
For example, if I say that a program is based on MDB (Message Driven Beans) a
Re:Problem #1 (Score:3, Interesting)
But the technical department was completely confused between J2EE and EJBs. This confusion was communicated to the buying department and they then kept accusing us of not understanding J2EE. Our product was being written to J2EE 'standards' but we were not using EJBs.
Eventually,
That would be "Problem #3", yes (Score:3, Interesting)
They don't know what EJBs are (as illustrated by your example where they didn't know the difference between EJB and J2EE as a whole), but they've read in some IT-for-retards magazine that Sun says EJBs are great. So they must have some.
And for that matter, XML. And XSLT. (Just writing the data or using a template is soo 1990. Nowadays you _m
Problem #2 (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, for example, let's take everyone's favourite comparison between computers and cars. So let's say a company, (A) produces cars, and (B) wants to make its own brand-new intranet system.
And here's the funny part:
(A) to make cars they actually trust the engineers what should go into that car. If the engineers say they need this and that gear or scre
Re:So what (Score:4, Insightful)
First order of business for a CEO/CIO/board is to not make any decisions that will end up getting your ass fired.
Buying product that is dressed up with warm fuzzy sound-bites is appealing. Geek-talk sound very risky.
"Synergetic integration" sounds nice and sounds like a good decision.
"Client server system using a fibre optic backbone an V6 IP stacks" sounds pretty risky. When something goes wrong, the people that the decision makers report to (board/stock holders/...) will think the person took unnecessary risks, even if these descriptions are of exactly the same product/service.
Dot Com pre-IPO Buzzword Primer (Score:5, Funny)
-------- -----------
Adaptable Product not yet coded.
Scalable Not scalable.
Best-of-Breed As good as other vaporware.
Zero-maintenance Zero-utility.
Open Works with anything - just not with your systems.
Re:Dot Com pre-IPO Buzzword Primer (Score:3, Funny)
Adaptable: Works equally bad on every type of problem.
Scalable: Works equally bad on every problem size.
Best-of-breed: We tried several times, but couldn't produce something better.
Zero-maintenance: You can't make it work better by putting work into it.
Open: There are several ways to get our crap.
Cross-platform: Fails differently on different systems.
Future-proof: It can't get worse anyway.
Object-oriented: We expect someone to object against the use of thi
Re:Solutions replaced products long ago (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Solutions replaced products long ago (Score:3, Insightful)
Not quite. If we can convince your CEO that you have a problem, when you actually have none, then:
Our Solution = Profit
And THAT is 50% of why Buzzwords exists...
Need more buzzwords? (Score:5, Informative)
Dilbert-inspired: The Buzzword Generator [luc.edu]
Yet Another Buzzword Generator [1728.com]
And there are many, many more buzzword generators [google.com] out there, implemented using open-architected dynamic algorithms by organic radical policies...
Re:Need more buzzwords? (Score:5, Funny)
Bullshit Bingo [dirkmeissner.com]
from your favorite... (Score:2)
Need Translations? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Need more buzzwords? (Score:5, Funny)
(company) leverages core skillsets and world-class team synergy through (product) to provide clients worldwide with robust, scalable, modern turnkey implementations of flexible, personalized, cutting-edge Internet-enabled e-business application product suite e-solution architectures that accelerate response to customer and real-world market demands and reliably adapt to evolving technology needs, seamlessly and efficiently integrating and synchronizing with their existing legacy infrastructure, enhancing the e-readiness capabilities of their e-commerce production environments across the enterprise while giving them a critical competitive advantage and taking them to the next level.
Re:Need more buzzwords? (Score:5, Funny)
This is perl program, so just grab it down, read through it to make sure I don't rm -rf / and stuff, and have fun!
Foggy.txt [flying-rhenquest.net]
IP laws. (Score:2)
Re:IP laws. (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you mean "without other companies leveraging their intellectual property at our expense" ?
Dumbing down? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dumbing down? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because if I read an ad for a "consumer energy solution", I have no idea what it is. How is that being specific?
Is it a battery pack? Is it a gasoline powered generator? Is it some miniature fusion reactor that I can put in my basement and "solve" my "energy problem" (eg: Paying my utility bills...)? Even "Power Cube" is horrible. Sounds like a game console. "Desktop computer power supply." That's specific - and rather non-techical!
(I know your post was just an example, but so was mine!)
=Smidge=
Re:Dumbing down? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been on more than one project where the high-end technical architecture was decided at the golf course -- after which, half the little people were burned by trying to make it all work, and the other half were burned by saying it wouldn't work. Nobody thought to blame the bloody golfer.
tech marketing words getting scrutiny (Score:2, Informative)
IBM... (Score:5, Interesting)
All in all, a stupid article from a moron too lazy to do any research.
Re:IBM... (Score:2)
Re:IBM... (Score:2)
Re:IBM... (Score:4, Funny)
Not to say they are without blame -- I remember the pure horror the first time I used Visual Studio .NET and found that it opens not "Project" files like VS6 but "Solution" files.
My favorite is 'leverage' (Score:2)
Re:My favorite is 'leverage' (Score:5, Funny)
of solutions? Enterprise solutions, obviously. And why do you want to
leverage these enterprise solutions? In order to set the company on
a critical path to achieve total quality, monetize the bottom line, and
raise the bar and set the standard for the entire industry, of course. Ah,
but here's the real question: *how* do you leverage the enterprise solutions
and set the company on a critical path to do those things? You need a
gameplan, a gameplan to get everyone on the same page going forward in a
fault-tollerant and robust expectations paradigm, that's how, because only
with that kind of dynamic will you really out-compete the competition in the
new ecconomy. So, we need to revisit our objectives and reorient our goals
so that we -- all of us -- can accomplish this vision, this future, indeed,
this destiny. Everyone has to participate in the process, because you can't
meet the kits if you don't go to St. Ives...
For high end computing and low end computing (Score:3, Interesting)
It's about flexibility. Well, I started by using OS X simply because it was a more productive OS environment than IRIX, Solaris, Windows or yes, Linux. I could use one environment to run specific scientific code, run Office and Photoshop along with serving up webpages and other high end tasks including cluster computing all in one environment that allowed me to replace an SGI, and a Windows machine with one OS X box. The fact that I could also use iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD etc....etc....etc....allows me to also use them at home and suggest OS X running Macintosh systems for my family who knows very little about computers. If Apple can do that and market to both the high end and the low end with one solution, more power to them.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't blame this on Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
But in the long run, services is actually the driving force in computing. Products are fine, but upon those products is a whole ecology of companies providing support, enhancement, and integration of those products, tailored for each individual company.
In fact, this is what makes Open Source software so attractive. It sure as hell isn't good to be the company developing the software, but it is really good to be a service provider using that software. No longer do you need to pay for the software, you only need to pay for support.
I guess this could be a double edged sword for customers, though. It seems that there would be an incentive to keep OSS as obtuse and inscrutable as possible to maximize support income. This obviously wouldn't happen with a commercial product that has to prove its worth by being easier to use and generally better than the equivalent OSS package, just to compete.
Re:Don't blame this on Microsoft (Score:2)
It seems to me if somebody needs to feel important or needs to say a product is better than another no matter what it does is riddled with these pheases that simply drown the real meaning of the product being sold.
Using Google with the buzzwords I got:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=scalab l e+
It's more about marketing (Score:3, Interesting)
Providing and selling services are completely okay with me, too, as long as it's possible to figure out what those services actually are. Where I have the problem is when the marketing lingo that's describing the product or service is so abstract and
Re:It's more about marketing (Score:3, Funny)
Salesman: "Well great! You've come to the right place! We have all sorts of dynamic solutions here!"
Re:Don't blame this on Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, as one of those
Anyway, as long as decent-sized firms need business problems solved with IT, somebody will have to do the work. To the extent that no in-house IT shop can keep the place running and handle large implementations of new tools, software, data, infrastructure... it's us morons to the rescue. And we have to live gig to gig, which means we're not getting paid for 40 solid hours of work every week of the year. We have to spend time finding new work, doing paperwork, and other things that make our actual customer-facing time as expensive as it is.
Incidentally, we don't use the term "solution" when we're talking about Excel or Word (well, not usually). That language comes out in the context of larger scale (and "scalable," yes) things we bolt together out of the higher-end products.
Now, I can't comment on which came first (IT's use of the term, vs what follows), but if you talk to the other operations people in a large company, you'll hear about "waste management solutions," "marketing solutions," "entryway security solutions," "fire supression solutions," and so on. Don't succumb to slashdot tunnel vision on this one!
Good article (Score:5, Funny)
Not as good as you think (Score:4, Interesting)
Give me benchmarks! Give me comparisons!
Re:Not as good as you think (Score:2)
Re:Not as good as you think (Score:2)
In the words of Professor Slagle, "Laws can be simple, or they can be fair, but they cannot be both simple AND fair."
This is because the world is not simple either.
Re:Not as good as you think (Score:3, Insightful)
An interview with the man behind it all (Score:2)
Bill Hicks Had It Right. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to "interface" with the AdExecs on a regular basis at work, and they are so god damn annoying. Always sitting around "doing lunch" whilst creating "PowerPoints" to present to the upper-echelons of management, showing how they have "factored-in" their latest and greatest "thinking outside-of-the-box".
Makes me so enraged I want to throw up and shoot them at the same time. Grrr.
I guess what really pisses me off is the fact that they get paid to do the same basic job I do. Bullshit the bosses ;)
Re:Bill Hicks Had It Right. (Score:2)
I guess what really pisses me off is the fact that they get paid more to do the same basic job I do. Bullshit the bosses
[/edit]
P.S. I'd like to welcome our new empowering business-focused fresh-thinking up-sized buzzword overlords.
Re:Bill Hicks Had It Right. (Score:2)
Don't thow up at the same time as shooting, it will spoil your aim.
Re:Bill Hicks Had It Right. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bill Hicks Had It Right. (Score:3, Interesting)
While you think we're piddling around "doing lunch" an
Well, _I_ hate the _system_ that created you (Score:4, Insightful)
Business and technical decisions are taken by people _completely_ unqualified, based purely on "oh, I know that guy. We played golf. Let's buy whatever he's selling." Or on "but the nice salesperson said it would solve all the problems, including cancer, AIDS and world hunger." Or here _literally_, and in that manager's own words, a broken product got bought "because it had the nicer powerpoint presentation." (To make it even more surrealistic, a product noone needed.)
And I've been on the receiving end of that fuck-up entirely too often. Completely dysfunctional "solutions" are bought like that. And then we engineers and admins have to make a completely broken product work. And if it still doesn't, then it obviously has to be our fault. Because the nice salesperson told the PHB that it works, and surely the nice salesperson couldn't have possibly lied to the customer. It must be those mean engineers that sabotage it.
And even _if_ the problem does eventually get to be acknowledged by the PHB, the next result is more lunches done, more colourful powerpoint foils are presented, and the PHB buys an even more broken v2.0 of the same product. (Or, don't laugh, some PHBs here are looking forward to version 6.0 of a totally broken product.) Surely now all problems are fixed. Because the nice salesperson said so.
So I can't say I hate you, as such. Where there's a demand, someone creates the supply. I.e., if some PHBs actually want to be lied to and scammed, yep, the system also produced the marketting people who do that. Perfectly normal economics there.
What I would however like to see fixed is the system.
For starters, I'd like to see some serious liability in this industry. Because this hiding behind an EULA that says "whatever happened, it's your problem, not ours" is just legalizing bigger and bigger marketting frauds. So I'd like to see people and companies facing a billion sized lawsuit if they mis-represented a product as doing what it really doesn't.
Also, while I guess one can't outlaw bullshit buzzwords as such, I'd like to see it legally mandatory to clarify (A) exactly what it means, and (B) exactly on what case studies it had that effect.
E.g., "synergy"? Ok. Between what and what? On what cases did you notice that synergistic effect? And how big was it?
E.g., "lower TCO"? Fine. On what use case? Compared to what? (Most of this crap would only lower TCO compared to carving that data by hand on stone blocks, like in the Flintstones.) And how much lower was the TCO, then? Does that include the cost of the uber-expensive consultants to make it work, or?
E.g., "scalable"? Good. Scalable in which way? And in which way is that better than just the plain-old using a cluster and load-balancer?
Etc.
Then maybe we'll see _some_ (minimal) honesty in advertising in our lifetimes. And then we nerds wouldn't have to be disgusted by the whole marketting bullshit.
Come again? (Score:3, Informative)
Ryan Donovan, a Hewlett-Packard Co. public relations director, concedes that terms like "data migration" and "optimizes agility" - both of which are found in the company's press materials - might confuse average readers. But the company uses those phrases in documents intended for technology experts and executives, he says.
To exactly which technology experts is he referring? Sure as hell not me.
Re:Come again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Newflash! (Score:4, Funny)
Solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
OR, those solutions route phone calls, let you manage and share your calendar or take a picture of your license plate when you run a red light.
Those buzzwords do have definitions. Its the simpletons in Marketing and PR who try to decsribe shit without understanding what the shit does or how it will be used.
I've often wondered if the vague descriptions served a another purpose, which is to throw off your potential competition by not telling anyone what you do... Maybe thats why those companies usually have no customers...
Just an old dog not wanting to learn new jargon... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say most of what he sites is pretty silly, but "Scalable?"
I can't think of a better word to describe something as highly functional as scalable, even if sometimes it applies to things it really shouldn't matter for.
But we'll take for instance a simple peer to peer file sharing network. Some file sharing networks simply don't scale well to thousands of users, or hundreds of thousands but work really well for a few dozen. So knowing weather or not something like this is scalable enough to demonstrate to a small office, then deploy company wide. Knowing something like that REALLY WILL save you some heartache later one.
Or how about rendering engines? Some scale DOWN as well as up. A good scalalbe engine means software will drop features on low end hardware, and take advantage of more on newer hardware.
Some jargon is useful.
But others are just annoying. I still hate the term "BLOG". We already has sufficient terms to describe most post and forum sites, but the term BLOG implies a specific type and now sites that aren't really blogs are being called blogs by the internet newcomers who don't know any better.
So
Re:Just an old dog not wanting to learn new jargon (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not the words. The words are good. It's how they are used, misunderstood, and misused.
Fortunately, I mostly deal with people who admit they don't know much of what's out there -- it's silly to claim you do since there's so much tech out there it's just not possible.
The people who cover up what they do/do not know in an attempt to look "smart" are a big problem. These people either think they know it all or don't want anyone to
scalable is not a marketing word (Score:3, Insightful)
While other things discussed in the article are just plain silly, scalability is a real feature of software. It should be discussed in marketing material, and customers should ask about it if its not. I guess the inability to discern between buzzwords and features extends, beyond marketers and purchasers, to the writer of the article.
Every software is scalable. (Score:2)
Re:Every software is scalable. (Score:3, Informative)
"Scalability" is a pure and meaningless buzzword, unless specific metrics of the precise scale is provided. That's the point.
We have a "scalable" application that scales by adding servers and dividing the work between them. That's not so bad in and of itself except that in order to get the information you want out of it you have to know which server to ask and none of the servers can tell you anything about the big picture.
Scales great and "less
Re:Every software is scalable. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not. A word processor is not scalable; you can only have 1 person using 1 instance at a time. If a software package can be used on modest hardware -- and tossing more hardware at it makes that one instance more capable -- it's scalable.
I agree that throwing hardware at poorly designed software can be a mistake if other similar software doesn't need the extra gear. Ho
Re:Every software is scalable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Upgrading a PC so the games play faster is not an example of scaleability.
A MMORPG that runs on a server farm is scaleable if adding more boxes allows more players in the same instance of a virtual world. If it only allows more isolated games, it's not scaleable.
Opens up a good way to ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just ask him what his "solution" solves for your business.
Sometimes buzzwords actually work in the customers favor.
Whiney bitch (Score:5, Insightful)
Enterprise = Anything dealing with corporations
Scalable = Anything that can support growth
Blog = Web Log. Its a fucking diary.
I was expecting to see shit like "Synergy", but "Data Migration"?!? How the hell can you be in the IT industry and not understand Data Migration?
What a douche bag!
The word "synergy" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The word "synergy" (Score:4, Insightful)
If I'm reading the cards correctly (on rather scanty hints), the reason that "synergy" has become such a Dirty Word amoung us realists is that while synergy is a real thing and can have outstanding benefits, in its typical use it is almost always indicates a suicide pact in progress. "Synergy" is typically used as the major reason behind a merger, and "synergy" mergers almost always fail because of the underestimation of both companies of the difficulty in merging cultures.
(Culture is such a soft, fuzzy thing, right, and it couldn't be hard at all to make everything mesh, right? You'd think so, because it's basically impossible to put into words why it is difficult (at least not without it sounding silly or trivial), thus for many people not accostomed to thinking without words it is also impossible to think. Nevertheless, history shows it is so difficult it may border on the impossible for sufficiently large companies.)
AOL + Time Warner is probably one of the biggest examples of this. Sure, on paper the synergy was mind-blowing. In reality, the combined company was completely unable to execute. (In fact, the lack of execution almost completely boggles the mind.)
"Synergy" seems to lead a lot of companies to doom; they see the benefits but fail to see the costs.
Apple and Microsoft did this because they had to (Score:2)
How many people care how many gallons their washing machine uses? A better selling point would be that it can wash 16 towels at one time.
There are people that like screwing around with technology, and those that just want t
Re:Apple and Microsoft did this because they had t (Score:2)
I'm new to speaking Buzzword Bullshit. I swear that I'm going to end up killing my manager, though he is a good English to marketing translator.
Re:Apple and Microsoft did this because they had t (Score:2)
Marketing is the root of the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't even bother with marketing materials any more. I google for "$PRODUCT problem resolved" or somesuch.
My personal opinion is that marketers should be legally liable for making false or even potetially misleading statements. I implemented a BI/Broker (A Business Intelligence package, if you'll excuse the oxymoron) install, all the while knowing that the thing was essentially worthless without us puting in the intelligence that the thing needed. A simple spreadsheet would have done the same, with less hardware/software/programing. It was OMG Cool to the buzz-word compliant people though, since the marketing weenies did such a good job of hood winking senior management. In the end, the company used 1/4 of the systems functionality, and the rest was done by spreadsheet. Go figure.
Really, I wonder how 'scaleable' the marketers personal wallets are, after I've spent my employers money of a product that only does half the job I thought it would, and I can recover costs because they lied.
Marketing is lies, more lies and damned lies in a pretty package so you'll put your money and reputation on the line. The whole premise is to extract money from your companies shareholders and give it to thier shareholders. Remember that the next time a sales weenie takes you out for lunch.
Soko
Marketing is necessary (Score:3, Interesting)
A company that doesn't let potential customers know about its products will usually die quickly. This is a fundamental business truth that is often obscured by the obnoxious and sometimes deliberately misleading actions of marketers. Think of the number of great applications, for example, that don't do well in the market because the people behind the apps didn't have effective marketing.
Re:Marketing is necessary (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course marketers shouldn't lie. Usually they don't. Instead, they use broad, vague terms that can seldom be disproven. "Well, when we said our product could integrate with Snaftech System 3000 servers, we were correct. You need the Goatbleat 150 Converter in order to obtain full functionality, but you can still connect to the Snaftech 3000 using our product. It all depends on how you define the word 'integrate' I guess."
As the world
Apple is primarly guilty... (Score:2, Flamebait)
It frustrates people, and it makes people feel like morons. Which they're not, just inexperienced.
A Win/Win Proposition for Leveraging Strategic Com (Score:5, Funny)
It is a well-known fact that at the current point in time unprecedented opportunities for leveraging win/win strategies arise through emergent social-dynamics synergies heralding revolutionary technology breakthroughs in world-wide media applications.
This post presents to the Slashdot community a proposal for an exciting new roadmap that delineates a win/win strategy integrating unique potentials for reaping the benefits of emergent synergistic effects arising from a major paradigm shift in focus group dynamics and from leveraging cost/benefit appraisals in the resulting market-share contribution matrix.
I think we can all agree that innovative win/win strategies to facilitate the on-going paradigm shifts in market model convergence scenario implementations spearheding cutting-edge technology utilization are paramount to the success of a comprehensive assessment of the emergent Slashdot win/win market penetration focus group convergence synergy potential.
This revolutionary proposal comprises a visionary win/win scenario for leveraging factors that consume all resources, in other words, resource hogs. The new strategy implements enhanced information flows wherein the resultant rise in information flow constitutes a major asset in the win/win strategy for enhancing countermeasures against this particular type of resource-consuming factor, in that the resultant friction will wash them away.
This unique win/win/win scenario comprises state-of-the-art paradigm shifts in community-building strategies for leveraging burgeoning cutting-edge visions of innovative synergized implementation models that underscore the win/win/win/win potentials of a comprehensive market-share focus to facilitate the sustainable spearheading of integrated emergent convergence-orientated industry exposures utilizing win/win/win/win/win propositions for heralding the introduction of unprecedented new win/win/win/win/win/win technology cost/benefit appraisals in order to enhance your browsing experience.
(If you read this post very carefully, you'll notice that if you remove all the buzzwords, what remains is hogwash. Literally.)
Confused? Just read.... (Score:3, Funny)
I read it and am now all cleared up. It even removed nasal congestion under 2 minutes and left my nose smelling minty clean with a mild scent of fresh lemon.
Huh? Apple? (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out their web page for the Xserve [apple.com]. It's their enterprise product and it's also their most technical page. It has little of their standard marketing flare and is loaded with tech specs.
I guess that all buzzword and no product stuff is why Apple recently announced Mac mini [apple.com], iPod shuffle [apple.com], iLife [apple.com] and iWork [apple.com].
I guess they also are not selling big honking displays [apple.com] or yet another version of their iMac [apple.com].
What do you have to do to lose the buzzword moniker, reinvent an entire industry [itunes.com]?
Counter productive (Score:2)
Buzzwords... (Score:4, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, all your base are imagining an ad-hoc beowulf cluster of old korean overlords welcoming YOU!
Thank you.
communications issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Bill Gates or Timothy Leary (Score:2, Funny)
Replace "the PC is" with "drugs are."
My new VP of engineering (Score:2)
-actionable
-repeatable
-iteratively
-resonate
and my personal favorite "theater of the real"
Don Watson's Death Sentence (Score:5, Informative)
I read his book a few months ago. He talks of the death of public language, how it has been pervaded by words and phrases that have no real power or truth - dead language.
To quote from the following article Fighting the Death Sentence [theage.com.au]
"To provide outcome-related research and consultancy services that address real-world issues" - shrieks of laughter. The university's "approach to quality management is underpinned by a strong commitment to continuous improvement and a whole-of-organisation framework" - uproar in the room. The university in question was RMIT but it could have been any of them. Go to your website and read the language, Watson urged guests at a recent Deans of Education dinner. That made people laugh even more. They worked at universities; they knew what he was talking about. Some of them probably even wrote this stuff. It was a surreal moment. But to Watson the joke has a sting. It is funny and it is awful. A terrible thing is happening to the language, he believes, and at the end of the day, in a globalised world, it is not a positive communications outcome. In other words, there is a pox upon our public speech.
Re:Don Watson's Death Sentence (Score:3, Interesting)
I felt that the book, ironically enough, beat about the bush and took too long to make a simple point.
Solutions are the problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Whomever dreamt up "Solution" in the IT world should be shot.
(I don't think it was Microsoft or Apple).
I had a client who wanted to send invoices out as PDF documents via Email. They have a system in place already that generates Invoice forms on laser printers and wanted it duplicated and produced as PDF/email. (a timeline of yesterday of course).
So, I call up the company that wrote the Forms software they were already using as their new version supported creation of PDF documents as well as emailing them. Should be easy right? Wrong.
Couldn't buy the software, instead the company wanted to provide a "Solution", the salesperson wouldn't even give an idea of the price for the 'solutions', but demanded we wade through a web demo with him for an afternoon before it was to be discussed.
So, after having a little back and forth phone tag / negotiations we said forget it and I found a nice piece of software which could convert PCL to PDF and supported PDF Encryption / Access restrictions.
Dropped the program onto the server, spent an afternoon making adjustments to the process to add email support and presto; PDF Documents via Email.
Obfuscational Rhetoric (Score:5, Insightful)
Example: Instead of saying "What is your schedule?" I get: "What is your timeline, from a scheduling perspective?"
Or, instead of "How is the project going?", I get: "How are things going, from a project perspective?"
I swear to God that the people I work with can't form a sentence without this. It drives me nuts. That, and people who say "processees". Fucking ignorant.
Blame the marketers, not the engineers (Score:3)
Unfortunately those don't sell.
Marketers on the other hand begin with their job title, "I'm a human to product relationship consultant, my work load is scalable while energising each new solution. etc etc"
It is marketing (Score:3, Insightful)
We know that people buy stuff of spam. I saw a $2 pan being sold as a custom $10 fondue set. MS tells us that employees are incapable of using anything other than MS Windows. Apple tells us that you are a square if you don't use Macs. IBM promises massive profits if you use the complete solution. Sun says that IBM is ripping everyone off. It is game and learning to play it is part of our brand of capitalism.
Why "solutions" rather than concrete technology (Score:4, Insightful)
For someone on the selling side, it's more profitable to sell value-based 'solutions' rather than technology where he has to compete on price.
For someone on the buying side, getting a "solution" may be more expensive, or it may be cheaper if one doesn't want to be ones own integrator and support department. You are basically paying for reduced hassle. The trick is quantifying the value of your own hassle, and the liklihood the 'solution' will have its own hassles, and their cost. Different people will evalutate these things differently.
-dB
Legal 101.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the iPod shuffle, marketing thought it was edible, before the webmaster caught it
So, let marketing spew their BS, just unspecific buzzword BS, and everyone is happy except the customer.
Compared to what, car companies? (Score:4, Interesting)
Check out how many car ads have semi-naked women running around in them, drooling at the sight of a man behind the steering wheel. Now, I'm the last person to object to semi-naked women, and under the right circumstances, I could probably take the drooling, but just what does this have to do with the product?
Right, nothing. Pure marketing. I'm sure the time will come when computers will be marketed with sex, too, but until then, keep in mind that we've still got it good.
Examples? (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds pretty much like sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.
My favorite solution (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft's leaflet. (Score:3, Funny)
I remember a slogan from Microsoft's leaflet.
(some MS product) makes your work interesting.
Note: Not more efficient. Not easier. Not faster. Not higher quality. Not less tiring.
Exactly: "interesting". As in "WTF? Who would expect that option THERE?!" "Uh.... Not quite what I wanted, but interesting nevertheless". "And what does the picture on THAT icon mean?" "Maybe THIS option will do what I want? No? Maybe this one then?"
It was really interesting to follow an official Microsoft's troubleshooting guide on some problem, some 60 steps like "open this, click that, select this, scroll down to that, doubleclick this, rightclick that and pick option n, then press button X" only to realize around step 40 that there's no button X where it was supposed to be according to the guide.
Not really efficient. Rather annoying. Completely futile. But interesting nevertheless.
appealing to non-tech-savvy audiences (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Blog (Score:2)
Re:Reminds me of .Net (Score:4, Insightful)
It was supposed to be several things:
The reason no one really knows, or will ever know, is because, first, every business unit at MS was ordered to find some way, any way, to label themselves as .NET, thus diluting the whole brand before anyone even knew what it was; and second, MS couldn't commit itself to .NET 100%, and as result, many developers are already planning on skipping .NET because Avalon, XAML et al are already in the pipeline for Longhorn.
It's too bad, in a way. .NET and C# have a lot of good points (if only by fixing Java's obvious shortcomings); a really good standard library to simplify win32 programming is always to be desired. But .NET will never have the ubiquity it needs for the higher order benefits to really pay off. What they should have done with Longhorn was call it "the native .NET OS" or something like that (and announce Longhorn technologies as additions to .NET), so that developers feel that .NET has both longevity and ubiquity. As it stands, MS has fatally undercut .NET by announcing the technologies that will replace it.
As for what will happen now, .NET will survive for a decade or so as a major but never dominant technology because of points #1 and #2. #3 will see some token uses but never really become a selling point for anything. With Passport's demise, #4 is already dead, and its market is being eaten by things like federated identity management.