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IT Snake Oil — Six Tech Cure-Alls That Went Bunk
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan surveys six 'transformational' tech-panacea sales pitches that have left egg on at least some IT department faces. Billed with legendary promises, each of the six technologies — five old, one new — has earned the dubious distinction of being the hype king of its respective era, falling far short of legendary promises. Consultant greed, analyst oversight, dirty vendor tricks — 'the one thing you can count on in the land of IT is a slick vendor presentation and a whole lot of hype. Eras shift, technologies change, but the sales pitch always sounds eerily familiar. In virtually every decade there's at least one transformational technology that promises to revolutionize the enterprise, slash operational costs, reduce capital expenditures, align your IT initiatives with your core business practices, boost employee productivity, and leave your breath clean and minty fresh.' Today, cloud computing, virtualization, and tablet PCs are vying for the hype crown." What other horrible hype stories do some of our seasoned vets have?
very disappointed that the word "synergy" did not appear in either linked article or the summary.
Beware of the Leopard.
It has vaporware all over it.
We need to bring about a paradigm shift, to think outside the box, and produce a clear synergy between cloud computing and virtualization.
Apparently it cures everything but RSI.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I don't think so but the possibility can't be ruled out without further investigation. Have you ever tried to expose a database application to users and subsequently lost all faith in humanity?
I'm still getting therapy.
We had a simple field on a form to "Supply a Telephone Number". The users didn't, so we used JS to validate they had filled it in.
Then they filled in garbage, so we enforced numerals only. The users entered "1111111" everywhere.
Then we enforced standard number formats based on a Country selector, with correct International Dialling Codes and pattern / format matching. The users entered "0044 (1)1111111" everywhere.
Finally we checked that the numbers didn't look like "0044 (1)1111111" i.e. too many repeated characters, after extensive testing to avoid false-positives. The users now enter "0044 (1)2121212" everywhere.
The more you Idiot-Proof a system, the smarter the Idiots become. Not smarter at actually entering the correct data, just smarter at bypassing the protections you put in place.
Well, we tried ringing them...