COMMENTARY--Why do it vendors insist on creating catchy phrases to sum up their products? Is it to further confuse us, or are they really trying to help?
Do you have a friend or relative who has a job that you just don't understand? For me, that was my father. As a kid you are often asked what your parents do for a living. It was always easy for Mum, but Dad, well that was a different story. I never had a good answer, he just worked in the Navy doing some kind of important job.
Now the person with the confusing job in the family is me, writing about enterprise technology. I'm going to guess the person in your family who has everyone confused is you.
Talking IT is like speaking another language. I'm currently learning how to speak German, and I am not sure what is harder, learning IT from scratch or Deutsche. But every industry has its own language. Mechanics, plumbers, exterminators, podiatrists, botanists... get them talking about work and you will soon be lost in the detail. So giving the technology industry (and the people in it) a hard time because it is difficult to grasp isn't really fair. The thing is, IT professionals are struggling to keep up with technology as well. Surveys often show that IT managers and CIOs rate keeping abreast of technology changes as one of the hardest parts of the job.
Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about this. Technology is going to continue to evolve and make advances, and vendors will push you to make upgrades. However, IT vendors realise one of the biggest hurdles to pushing their products is educating the users. Unfortunately, in an effort to make concepts easier to understand, they are actually making it more confusing.
Microsoft's marketing of .NET was the ultimate in user confusion. They were selling us the concept long before they had any products to show. It got to the point where we were wondering if Microsoft even knew what it was doing. By the time everyone figured out what .NET was, we already had a grasp on the Web services concept, and that is saying something!
But if there was an award for creating the most confusing catchphrases in order to be less confusing, it would go to IBM. Similar to Microsoft, it also started espousing Web services. Except it didn't use the phrase Web services, it created a new phrase called "on demand".
| If I was really cycnical, I would say that Peoplesoft has nothing new to add, so it has come up with a catchy phrase to confuse customers and get more money. |
I attended a talk on IBM's eWorkplaces strategy, thinking it was all something new and exciting. But there was nothing new, it was the same products and the same services, but it just had a catchy new title. Like the CNET journalist, it took a long interview and lengthy answers to get to the bottom of that one.
PeopleSoft is a perpetrator too; it is now talking about the "total ownership experience", which is apparently the new era of enterprise software. Give me a break. What it really means is that now PeopleSoft has sold a lot of products, it needs to change tack. The company has to come up with ways to continue to service existing customers but has given it a catchy phrase for "better" understanding. If I was really cynical, I would say that PeopleSoft has nothing new to add, so it has come up with a catchy phrase to get its name in the press, confuse customers, and get more money.
Are IT vendors deliberately preying on the confusion of IT managers, or are they just doing a really bad job of trying to make it easier to understand?
This problem isn't limited to IT either. Recently I was listening to a guy on the radio who has written a book about the Australian and US food industry. He was proselytising what he dubbed the "wellness revolution". I wonder how many more books that catchy phrase will sell.
My advice for these people is to write their new catchy phrases in German, it will be easier for us to understand.
Natalie Hambly is Assistant Editor of Technology & Business. Send your favourite catchphrase to natalie.hambly@zdnet.com.au.
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