True Technologists are approximately ten years ahead of those who are not. This, in part, results in the skewed view of the IT industry existing today. If those selling technical solutions to the barely technical are not Technologists, how can you trust in what they are selling?
The key is that is has never been difficult to deploy and support IT systems to run like clockwork and improve an organisation’s efficiency and performance. The majority of many Technologists careers have been focused on making badly built or supported systems get to how they should have been in the first place and most importantly, sharing that knowledge. Automation was a cornerstone of the Technologists arsenal from the outset, not some newly discovered concept wrapped up in brand names to look nice and shiny.
If an organistion such as Microsoft advised you a system you have been running for ten years should not function and they will not support that configuration, who do you trust, the people who built the functioning system or the vendor that is trying to persuade you to buy their latest product?
Based on the ease with which technical solutions can be delivered, improvements to efficiency and performance are always possible, even when implemented by far less than the best. How though is it possible to measure if another solution could have resulted in twice the benefit at a half the cost if reliant on less than competent suppliers and vendors?
If an approved ‘partner’ organisation took three years to fail to deliver a project that a single Technologist could remediate and deliver entirely and perfectly within three months, is the Technologist a genius or was the original implementer useless? Given the choice, would you hire the Technologist or engage the ‘partner’ organisation? Perhaps take the position that every single large IT service provider and the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft (GAM) did and still do rely on hiring those Technologists on short term contracts, to appear to have more capacity in their organisation than exists and because they lack staff with those skills. I’ve worked with enough of them to know just how varied the skills their ‘Heads of’ certain technologies are.
What has a Technologist such as I been bringing to client-server computing since the 1980s? (Making a distinction between the start of desktop computing in the form of the Personal Computer replacing typewriters and the more traditional Technologists I have been in some cases lucky enough to learn from and whose RFCs and creations formed the foundations of the new industry, as they continue doing to this day.)
1980s
Teaching decision makers what a computer is, how to use that odd thing with buttons on a wire and in the case of certain leaders in their field, the mechanics of a power plug and the significance of having it connected to a power socket before trying to turn on the ‘stupid machine’. Diplomacy is the first lesson you learn when dealing with highly educated people who have no idea how to do anything but the one thing they are qualified in.
1990s
Helping to protect organisations from the lies of all the Accountants and others rushing out to hire people with a few Microsoft/Novell qualifications to set up ‘partner’ IT companies for a slice of the new cake. Who vetted the hires – the Accountants and other Corp. Finance investors? Yep. Hence the mess of IT in the 1990s.
Following the simple principles of client-server computing that anyone with a logical mind could deliver meant Technologists always had a short lifespan at any organisation (except the truly target rich messes that were ‘two-pipe’ problems perhaps) and generating less revenue because, to use the term first coined by us to denote something good in IT, “It just works!”, so the customer didn’t need to call their IT supplier every week, or even month.
Daily supporting systems Microsoft claimed to be too big and complex to work or support and creating secure, stable, high performance systems under the control of the organisation, not the vendor. Who did your organisations turn to when your Active Directory or Exchange systems failed and you could not afford Microsoft or they refused to touch your system in case they made it worse and risk litigation? There’s pride in their workmanship!?
2000s
Setting global standards for email and user migration and management built on technologies such as X.500 and LDAP that Microsoft’s Technologists hadn’t fully understood before basing Exchange and Active Directory on their interpretation of globally accepted standards.
Migrating tens of thousands of mailboxes and teaching proper system maintenance processes that Technologists were using for five or six years before Microsoft accepted them as ‘their’ standards. This would be the Microsoft that stated in 2005 “There is no market or license model for single or small business users to use hosted Exchange email.” Vodafone and O2’s response to the same concept “Would you like to sell some mobile phone contracts for us?”
2010s
Watching Microsoft, Google and Amazon learn how to support end-users, desperately trying to hire or associate with Technologists who had been doing so for 30 years. Prior to this, Microsoft would only support those willing to pay hundreds of thousands per year and never end-users. All others were sent to ten-a-penny ‘Gold Partners’ whose work Technologists have spent decades fixing and continue to do to this day – IT Director quote – “Why would Microsoft recommend this Gold Partner if they know nothing about this technology?”
Watching decision makers being led more each year by manipulation of budgets, not technological worth. As one global security vendor’s back room Technologists once begged me, “Please tell our marketing department what you just said, they are killing our software by not selling the benefits of the new technologies we included.”
2020s
Given the same level of knowledge and understanding of computing sitting with many decision makers, the ability of vendors to sell anything is now firmly bedded in and all they’ve had to do is hire a few hundred thousand low level techie wannabes to hide the fact that they still depend entirely on independent Technologists to guide their valuable customers (try logging a deep technical support case with MAG and see who they redirect you to – often not employed by the vendor are they?). There are of course many incredible minds that have been farmed into those organisations, technological advances have and will continue to occur due to these people. Proportionally, they form a tiny portion of vendors’ staff once again putting a premium on the truly skilled.
Wonder why there is a skills shortage in the traditional foundation of IT project and support delivery? The vendors drained the market to appear to be able to support their own software and now claim only those qualified by their revenue generating exams and training courses know how their systems work.
Instead of paying for what you want, you now have to spend more on working out hidden hourly, daily, monthly… costs than designing a technical solution, let alone the upsell on worthless security based on industry generated fearmongering (to be fair though a Technologist can still guide to the least cost solution, since cloud systems are even easier than on premise). Brave new world, artificial intelligence exists, there is no suffering left and everyone lives in harmony now GAM have saved the world with the cloud. (NOTE: In the 1980s business leaders all over the world believed computers were intelligent, so it really wasn’t difficult for GAM to sell the concept of AI.)
Conclusions?
The difference in the view and organisations’ use of IT and the value it brings depends entirely on the following.
1. Your organisation trusts in vendors marketing departments or Technologists to develop IT systems.
2. You can afford to be supported by vendors or have to be redirected by the vendor to the thousands of ‘feeder fish’ organisations that, no different to the 1990s, can be set up BY ANYONE WITH MONEY, not technical ability.
3. How much control the Accounting department and business in general has over IT decisions. Technological solution decisions should not be manipulated by vendors understanding how to play OP vs CAPEX or because a vendor took your CTO out to get laid at ‘Bill’s ranch’.
Of course, what do I know? I’m the ‘racist’ who railed against anyone dealing with Putin’s Russia, bought gold when Gordon Brown was selling, advised people to buy BitCoin when they were worth pennies (not ten years later like some self-proclaimed technical geniuses), as noted above, suggested Exchange Online to Microsoft, Vodafone and O2 in 2005 and could tell you what will happen in around 2027-8 but it will be funnier to wait and watch the system break due to the hubris of false Technologists. The clues are all there and since being able to see what few can in the most complex of IT landscapes is why I command the rates I do, it might be worth listening.
Napoleon Moses 