10 Things I Just Don’t Get About Tech

I’ve been immersed in the world of technology, IT vendors and business software for nearly 13 years, and there are lots of things to love and lots of things to hate. But there also many bewildering things about the tech world that still make me scratch my head in amazement.

1. Why is it acceptable for people to take out their BlackBerrys during a meeting and, without any sense of shame, clickity-clack away while others are talking and trying to get things done?

2. Why do vendors believe that being in one of Gartner’s Magic Quadrants impresses anyone anymore?

3. WTF is Ubuntu?

4. Why do startups with one product, two non-paying customers and $50k in VC money have the brazenness to call themselves “the leading provider of XYZ”?

5. Why can business executives still fall back on the familiar “IT doesn’t get the business” mantra when it’s painfully obvious that the “Business doesn’t want to get IT”—and it’s insanely irresponsible for CEOs and other business leaders to think that way?

6. Why did a near-collapsed Sun turn down IBM’s acquisition offers?

7. If pretty much everyone agrees that “No one ever got fired for buying IBM” was a terrible and short-sighted business strategy way back when, why is that same thing happening today with ERP systems from behemoths SAP and Oracle, especially when there are plenty of viable alternatives?

8. Why isn’t every single IT department employing some type of low-hanging-fruit virtualization strategy by now?

9. Why does the fact that 97 percent of all e-mail traffic is spam seem acceptable to everyone?

10. Mark Zuckerberg?

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