Cringely Poops on IT "Professionals"
 

Given that a number of the contributors to the Coat Room are "IT Professionals" in some sense, I'll be interested to read what they have to say about the latest column in I, Cringely The Pulpit

He's crapping on Gartner and over-inflated drones who blindly follow them. I think you've misread the article.

He's dead-on here. These research firms perpetuate everything from bad purchasing cycles to flat-out wasteful solutions.

wait do i count? lol

My employer blatantly touts our "gartner magic quadrant" performance year after year.

I think that Cringley has missed the point. Gartner and their ilk are natural offshoots of the typical corporate business model. Every industry has their analysts. That doesn't mean that those analysts provide any real value. They don't exist to provide value. They exist to provide cover, as in CYA.
CYA isn't about end users or saving money for the company. It's about protecting management and their fiefdoms. It's why Windows is entrenched even in the face of its massive security problems, and why Gartner et al won't go away.

I just want to know if he got bad advice from some IT person and is now taking it out on the whole industry. For example, comments like this:

And this:

Lead me to believe he must have some sort of vendetta against IT. I mean honestly, couldn't he have made his point without the generalized insult towards the whole industry?

Having worked with and in IT on various levels I know it's true that some IT professionals are better than others. But on the whole, they know more about technology than those they work for, it's how it's supposed to work. IT worries about the tech so you can work without worrying. I can't think of a faculty member in our English department who knows or cares how their network/webpage/grading program/ip/printer/TA hour tracker/lectern interface/word processor/os installation etc etc etc works. Why should they? They have better things to do. Just hire a couple IT guys, and let them manage it.

As for Cringleys bigger argument...it's hard to say. One big logical fallacy I want to point out is that Cringley claims that all that these IT managers want from Gartner is validation, not information. Then he goes on to say that most IT managers are morons, as I already stated. So which is it then? Are they idiots who need help, or competent individuals with emotional dysfunctions who want validation for the next projects? He needs to pick one.

Theoretically you could have both, but then you are saying that managers are idiots and Gartner is populated by a bunch of yes men. Quite honestly, that's moronic. If Gartner just told their clients they were right, and their idiot clients went and screwed up their companies, loosing billions of dollars/pounds/euros in the process, Gartner would have no clients. Period. End of story.

I really have to think this man has a chip on his shoulder. He has some valid points, but they are marred by his cynicism and his tendency towards hyperbole. I wouldn't trust this article any farther than I can throw it, and since I won't throw my computer for any reason...

I didn't misread it Mikey; I understood that he was crapping on Gartner; but as Zalister points out later (Post #6), he was also gratuitously crapping on IT as a profession. I am not an IT professional, I'm an Engineer. Having said that, the IT professionals I dealt with in the university from which I retired (and since I funded the department, I dealt with them a lot) were consummate professionals in every way. He confuses those types with the guys or gals who come to a meeting room to set up a projector, etc. As Z points out; he's just being hyperbolic.

It really doesn't matter if there are lots of IT professionals that know what they're doing. What matters most is results, and those are not so good.

People, especially Americans, tend to be mathematically challenged. Even so, most people intuitively know that it just isn't statistically possible for one system to be the best possible choice for all tasks, especially in a large company.

How is it then that the majority of IT professionals have consistently recommended Windows over all other systems, even to the point of locking other systems out? I know I've met and worked with many IT people who have never recommended anything other than Windows systems, even as the security issues were/are costing companies and individuals enormous amounts of time and money. Clearly, they can't be putting the needs of the users (companies and individuals) above their own. That isn't worrying about the tech, that's worrying about your own (IT tech) bottom line.

Innumerate is the phrase -- they can't think about and don't appreciate numbers.

I can step up to the plate here a bit -- Windows machines are cheap, particularly if purchased en masse (hundreds) all of the same design. Having said that, as you point out, they're problematic and our IT folks earned their keep by defending them at the gateway to the fiber backbone and keeping them running. I had budget to replace 1/3 of them (or sometimes just their logic boards) every year (and we gave the replaced third to schools). We had IBM servers running Linux or BSD Unix and Novell NetWare to defend licenses on expensive network software. Only the School of Architecture and individual faculty used Macs (me included).

Their biggest selling point! It ensures that the fiefdom is secure by keeping the end user(s) in jeopardy.

Every time I see the title of this thread it reads like a pre-school curse word.

As in Cringlely-poops to you.

As far as sticking to Windows for an enterprise OS, sometimes it is just easier to stick with what your employees are already familiar with and avoid any training issues to do basic computer usage tasks.

And for locking other systems out, isn't it best to just stick with one platform as an environment in most cases? I talked to one Web company that split its environment between Mac and PC - employees choice - and it created a lot of headaches for them with sharing files.

And that was the reason at the U I retired from that individuals could run whatever they wanted to, but departmental and faculty facilities ran one or the other. In our case, there was much more engineering software available for PCs than for Macs, but as I said above, in Architecture and City Planning is was the reverse.

That's just being lazy.
No. It's the worst thing to do. It creates an environment where if one system is compromised, they're all compromised. Big Surprise: Guess what happens all too frequently to corporate networks!

As someone who's worked in IT since '94... we all pretty much ignore Gartner.
Except for CIO's. Who are in almost every case nothing more than MBA's who know jackshit about IT, but like to pretend they do as they read everything Gartner puts out.

It's a support nightmare to have multiple platforms, and extra expense--in licensing, personnel, training, application deployment, standardization, etc.
Sometimes, a user will need multiple computers to run all the applications they need, because one will only run on one platform, others on another platform, etc.
So, yes, if at all possible, any IT organization seeks to standardize the hardware and OS platforms as much as possible. Even at certain peoples' vehement cries of warning, most companies that implement sensible security policies don't have their entire networks go down due to Windows viruses.

:rolleyes:
So in order to save IT some work, let's set up a system in which users will only use the applications that they absolutely must use, choosing to avoid their computers whenever possible. Talk about a productivity drain!

It's ok though, because it won't show up on the books.

Most people aren't ill either. I guess that means there's no reason for health insurance.

Saving IT some work, CWT, is saving on personnel to do the work and thus minimizing costs.

We are talking about businesses here right? Corporate IT seeks to provide the tools needed by employees as much as possible while balancing the bottom line. They're only given a finite budget--it can't be wasted in supporting multiple platforms just for the sake of having them.
So yes, every company only buys the computers and software needed to run the operation. I have no idea who's avoiding their computers in your hypothetical.
Also remember, not every company uses off-the-shelf products. Half of my job is writing software for inhouse applications for my company. We can't write windows version, a Mac version, a Linux version, and can't afford to hire another company to come in and port our applications over, just because an employee like you would prefer to use a Mac. We do have 3 or 4 Mac users actually--but they're strictly video production machines.

Those "sensible security policies" are our insurance policies. It's the companies that miss the boat on this that end up sinking when a new worm comes out.

Look around you. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one.

:rolleyes:
Ever hear of PHP? Or just plain old object oriented programming? How about the internet?

If you're writing custom software for your business and it isn't platform independent, or at least easily recompiled, then you need to get out of your Ford Pinto and leave the 1970s. We're in the twenty first century now.
No, they're not. Those policies are what guarantee that when you do get hit, you'll get hit hard. That's not insurance. That's reckless driving.


LOL! Saving a few IT guys some work, but costing the rest of the company more work does not minimize costs. It increases them.

I think anyone who pays too much attention to industry pundits (and industry consultants) without doing their own homework would be better off investing in the proverbial Florida swampland.

When somebody else does your thinking for you the results are likely to be suboptimal.

What a wonderful world it would be if everything could just be written for a web browser. Web apps have some severe limitations and cannot be used for everything.
But hey, it must be that simple! I'll just go and reconfigure all the PLC's on our manufacturing lines to output everything in PHP.

You do know that php does not need to be run by a web server, right? It can be compiled for standalone apps.

Now, call me crazy, but since it's the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) that is programmed, and programs are written in text, it just doesn't seem to me that it matters what the platform is. What's important here is that IT sees this as a way to lock out other platforms and then use that lockout to justify itself: We can't do it on the Mac because it doesn't have the software. Never mind that it doesn't have the software because we banned it.

Where I worked it was a common saying (even in Management) that a good manager could be replaced with someone tossing a coin with no reduction in decision quality.
So they tried to make decision-making easier. Almost coloring by numbers. Eventually the idea was to have "defensible" decisions rather than good ones. More effort went into making sure the decision followed the guidelines than ensuring it was a good one.
Then, in early 1992, they told us we didn't have jobs. Every decision leading to the company's demise was defensible.
It's a manager's job to make decisions. But making good decisions is hard. Owning up to bad ones is unpleasant. Being able to point to reports and studies that support your wrong decision helps no end.