Slashdot Mirror
The Perils of Ramming Products Down IT's Throat
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Paul Venezia takes issue with the all-too-familiar practice of management dictating IT solutions to admins savvy enough to know the fiat revolves around far inferior products, in this case Nissan North America's embracing of Microsoft's Hyper-V. 'Very rarely do unilateral decisions by CIOs make for solid IT infrastructures, and they are generally at odds with what the admins on the ground are communicating,' Venezia writes, noting that upper managers who succumb to vendor tricks face a far worse fate than an infrastructure based on inferior technology — one devoid of the kind of expertise necessary to make the best of their flawed purchasing decisions. 'If continuously faced with the specter of having to implement and support clearly inferior products due to baffling, uneducated management decisions, top-flight admins will simply head elsewhere.'"
Pity the poor admins - having to actually [shudder] do what their boss wants rather than having the boss catering to their whims and biases.
This behavior is a bit like paying a doctor to diagnose a disease and then calling him a liar when he makes the diagnosis - if you honestly believe you know medicine better than the doctor does, why would you hire him?
Wow, got a bone to pick much? Guess what? Your doctor might give you a diagnosis they find convenient. What are you going to do, sue them for malpractice if they turn out to be wrong? Snicker snort. By the same token, you might think the IT guy has a personal reason for his decisions. You might even be right. Of course, the responsible thing to do in this situation (short of getting a grip) is to replace him, not to go behind his back and buy software, then force him to implement it.
Some of the best managers are delegators who do not micromanage more than what is necessary for business or legal reasons. They hire good people whose decisions can be trusted
That can be the hard part, especially if you're not given enough budget to hire that person, but you still have to hire someone. Oh sure, you might look for another job, but in the mean time you're still going to hire someone so that you can keep the one you've got until you get another one. This is one reason why the tree-structured corporate model of business tends to be inefficient.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Microsoft has years and years of experience pulling this stunt. They've done it over and over again in multiple markets (OS, and office suites are the two obvious ones. I remember when Windows cost $99 and office cost $99, and you could use that copy of windows and office on your work computer and as many "home" computers as you wanted. They were never free, but those products have far exceeded even health care in inflation over the last 15 years. In 1995 I spent a total of $200 and had legal licenses of the latest OS and office suite for 3 computers. Today that same licensing would cost me more than $3000, luckily I moved to linux in 2002.)
I can't remember this licensing arrangement ever being true for retail bought copies of Windows or Office. Do you have a link ?