So, HP, What Exactly Are You Trying To Sell Us?

billtom writes "There's an article over at c|net news where the normally fawning technology business press actually takes an HP VP to task for the extremely vague statements that usually surround enterprise software 'products.' With some gems like 'That could be boilerplate applying to any company,' and 'But again, how does that differ from what's been around?' and 'But hasn't that always been the goal?'" I'd like to see Charles Cooper interview whoever came up with .Net, too.

Comments

Re:be fair

[sacrilicious]

I don't know if AE is any good, or if it's what it claims to be, but I do know that marketing speak CAN have a real meaning in a marketing context. When we geeks ridicule the suits for talking gibberish, it's no better than when they ridicule us for our acronyms... If we hope to make any progress in the things that really matter (digital freedom), we need to learn to communicate with these people.

I confess not to know what the term "digital freedom" means in the context of this discussion, but I will comment on your suggestion that there's a burden on engineers to bridge the communication gap with marketers. If engineers are the people who truly know how product X works, and can't comprehend what marketers are saying about X without a substantial effort, then it seems to me that executives at other companies who are trying to understand what X is and why they should buy it don't stand a chance in hell of getting what they think they might be paying for.

Re:be fair

[vmfedor]

Of course, but realize that AE isn't a product being engineered by a team of geeks sitting behind desks somewhere. AE is a business strategy for your IT department.

It is my understanding that AE is simply a huge megacorporation like Compaq/HP or IBM promising that they will help you keep on top of whatever trend is coming into play this week and help you achieve your IT and business needs as quickly as possible. Be it hardware, software, manpower, or research, they'll be there to help you grab the juiciest share of business you can when a new fad in the marketplace rolls around.

I could be wrong (after all, these are salesmen we're talking about ;) but I think I hit it pretty well on the head.