Media Ignores Enterprise Level IT

[Brett_Tabke]

I found this an interesting story to ponder:

[news.cnet.com...]

These are tech vendors with billions in profits that are largely ignored by business press, and there are tech categories with enormous worldwide revenue (enterprise categories in particular like storage, virtualization, network infrastructure) that are barely even acknowledged.

Oracle ($22 billion in revenue, $5 billion in profits) only cracks the top 10 companies by coverage for one of the eight publications examined: Fortune. Cisco ($40 billion in revenue, $8 billion in profits) didn't make it on anyone's top 10 list. IBM ($100 billion in revenue, $12 billion in profits) wasn't even in The New York Times' top 20, and was No. 19 for The Wall Street Journal.

[weeks]

And there is a lot going on here. These firms are moving into to the Fortune 500 and taking over IT departments, causing massive layoffs.

They are treating their employees like dirt. Great pay at signing, but then they send you twice as much work as you can do and then threaten to lay you off. Eventually, they do lay you off as they outsource your job to India or Brazil.

But, right now their business model is working for them. I worry about their clients, however. IBM, which I have first hand knowledge about, screws up the tech side so it is impossible for a firm to take their business elsewhere.

We've all been in that situation where we found ourselves married to a software package that we wanted to dump, but entire companies are handing over their entire IT enterprise to firms they do not any leverage over.

[carguy84]

We've all been in that situation where we found ourselves married to a software package that we wanted to dump

QuickBooks!

[JS_Harris]

When I worked for a major tech company in the late 90's Lotus Notes was managements idea of perfection. I spent more time writing applications and fixing things that "didn't quite work for our particular company" than I did performing regular IT duties.

Fast forward 10 years and I found myself transferring a major medical companies accounting setup from one outdated platform to another outdated platform because management liked it better.

The sign of a good company when it comes to tech management? One that actively seeks the brightest tech minds AND THEN TRUSTS THEM ENOUGH TO MAKE TECH DECISIONS.

[gpilling]

We've all been in that situation where we found ourselves married to a software package that we wanted to dump

QuickBooks!

Too true.

[graeme_p]

QuickBooks!

Just as another thread has someone mentioning Quickbooks as one of the packages they are staying on Windows (vs Linux) for.....

Back on topic: journalists in every field I know anything about consistently get stuff wrong. I assume, therefore, that everything else is wrong as well, but I do not know enough to spot it.

Enterprise level IT is hard to understand, and very hard to explain to readers.

[weeks]

Enterprise level IT is hard to understand, and very hard to explain to readers.

Amen. About the only publication that really tried is eWeek, and, alas, they are just a shadow of their former self. Yet, they still manage to show a little light into dark side at times.

Over half of IBM's employees work from home offices. Think about that.

[celgins]

I think the media stays away from in-depth enterprise level IT material because, for the most part, it is boring to the average person.

People can relate to Facebook, Twitter and Hulu because they can see, touch, and experience them. The average web user even gets the pleasure of complaining about glitches in those systems when they have no idea about the level of IT engineering it takes to build/maintain them.

However, printing stories about a new Oracle db, or Cisco's CRS-3 technology, Cisco CRS-3 [money.cnn.com] isn't that sexy--until the masses can relate to it.

[weeks]

celgins, you right.

The business press once told you what you needed to know about, it told you what was a big deal. Business publishers didn't deal with a mass audience, they focused on decision makers and investors--and people who liked to know about stuff worth knowing.

Then, in the go-go 90s, everyone wanted to do business. Newspapers expanded their coverage, etc. And it got to be a mass audience.

The Wall Street Journal is now competing against The New York Times. It was not always that way. I have stopped reading WSJ. It's a waste of time.

[Syzygy]

Hmm, last month I ghost wrote an article - on behalf of an academic - for a management briefing journal. That related to research exploring Microsoft's approach to enterprise-level computing and how such technology offers greater flexibility and more control to their own employees. Happily for me, the text was aimed at a lay audience.

Does that count :-)

[Hugene]

I used to work for one of these enterprise IT outsourcing giants. A huge company that gets even 100 times less press than IBM or Cisco, yet employs over 50 000 people and contracts with everyone, including the gov.

My experience was horrible. IT outsourcing is a trap: both the original company and the outsourcer's only goals are to shift work abroad. IT infrastructure ends up being used as a hostage for keeping up the contracts. I worked alongside IBM people, and I can tell you that, to me personally, IBM's way of conducting business is borderline illegal. It's not the consultant's fault, they just do their job: it's the managment strategy and direction that is shady.

[MatthewHSE]

We've all been in that situation where we found ourselves married to a software package that we wanted to dump

QuickBooks!

Can I add ACT to that? For allegedly professional-level software, it sure manages to waste a tons of my time (and everyone else I know who uses it) on ridiculous, unpredictable bugs and quirks. I'd dump it in a heartbeat if I knew of anything that didn't cost an arm and a leg itself and would import from ACT.

[gpilling]

Can I add ACT to that? For allegedly professional-level software, it sure manages to waste a tons of my time (and everyone else I know who uses it) on ridiculous, unpredictable bugs and quirks. I'd dump it in a heartbeat if I knew of anything that didn't cost an arm and a leg itself and would import from ACT.

try Sugarcrm. There are forum threads on how to import ACT and there is a free version