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Lacking In Communication

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

The computer

industry media




The media reporting on the computer industry generally do a remarkable
job of covering a fast-paced, increasingly important sector of the

economy. Trade industry publications, technical newsletters and

general business magazines all offer news, analysis, product reviews,

vendor ratings and personality updates. But the disconnect is alive

and well in the computer industry media because covering it over

serves the interests of reporters, editors and publishers. Without

the ability to recognize how the disconnect biases reporting, CEOs

and other executives will have a difficult time understanding the

real issues.



Again, the problem is not accuracy, but bias. Many journalists are
encumbered with two raging forces: their publishers and an instinct

for controversy. It's not clear which force is more destructive

to judicious journalistic principles.





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"Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between
a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization."



George Bernard Shaw


Irish dramatist, 1856-1950

Publishers are

in the business of producing magazines and newspapers, right? Wrong.

Their business is selling advertising space, and to that end, most

publishers enter into an implicit contract with readers: In exchange

for advertisers underwriting the delivering of genuinely accurate

and valuable information to readers, publishers deliver targeted

and qualified prospects to the advertisers. This is the contact

and it's a sound one. Most publishers enforce a clear separation

between the editorial and advertising departments so that no one

can accuse them of covering or favoring certain vendor companies

in return for advertising dollars. But a few publishers cut corners

around their publication's editorial sections and blur the distinction

between editorial and advertising.



When that happens,

publishers abdicate an important role they could be playing in the

industry. They could offer an independent voice on behalf of their

readers, keeping the vendors, analysts and other self-serving groups

honest. But that might mean offending someone and there is little

reward in that. So publishers sometimes serve as accomplices to

the voices of friction, unwittingly opening their pages to more

hype and hokum.



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Computer journalists,

like all reporters, have the sentiments or Hollywood scriptwriters:

They gravitate toward drama and conflict, two qualities not naturally

overabundant in the computer industry. Not to worry. If genuine

conflict and discord are not forthcoming, they can be produced.

And what's the perfect metaphor for conflict? You guessed it: a

war. That's one of the driving forces behind the computer language

wars, the database wars, the platform wars and all the other mythical

'wars' that are mostly sound and fury, signifying nothing for the

businessperson with real business problems to solve.



The 'browser'

wars are a case in point. The technical press is having a field

day with the marketing contest between Netscape's Navigator browser

and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, putting the event up there with

the Cola Wars and the Network TV Morning Show Wars. While to the

vendors involved, a lot of money is riding on the outcome, businesspeople

care about the trade name that appears on their browsers about as

much as they care about the name that appears on their fax machines

or pagers.



My point is

this: Appreciate the underlying motivations of the media and don't

be caught up in its quest for melodrama. Fierce competitive pressures,

both economic and personal, encourage news coverage that is provocative

and controversial. In war, truth is the first casualty. This is

no less the case in the database wars, language wars and platform

wars that periodically entertain the computer industry.



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Here are

two pieces of advice regarding the computer industry media:




  • Be wary of

    benchmarks or comparisons between products. The reported results

    of these tests may be weighted by hidden agendas, skewed by protocols

    designed to reach predetermined conclusions or just plain misreported.



  • Apply appropriate

    corrections to all figures reported by the media. For number of

    installed sites, decrease by 50%. For response times, increase

    by 50%.



In short, remember

the old credo cigar-chomping city editors used to growl to cub reporters:

"Believe

nothing. If your mother says she loves you, check it out."



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Vendor-speak to English Dictionary


Do you ever get the impression that software vendors sometimes say
one thing but mean another? Ever wish you could get on-the-spot

interpretation of what the vendor actually meant to say? Here is

a quick reference guide for the systems, shopper:





When they

say this.
They really mean this.



"Completely open."


"There's a 50% chance that it will work with your existing
systems."





"Installed

at over 250 sites."



"Actively used by 25 sites, uninstalled at 25 sites, 200 sites
have filled out bingo cards requesting information."




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"Complete

interoperability among standard computing platforms."



"We'll do Windows and UNIX first, but don't hold your breath
waiting for the OS/2 and Macintosh versions."




"Twenty-four

hour hotline support."



"It'll take us at least 24 hours to get back to you."



"Announcing

a completely new architecture customizable to you specific requirements."



"Architecture announcements we have out the wazoo, just don't
pin us down on delivery."




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"Our customers

have the benefit of scalability."



"Watch as we try to sell you bigger and bigger machines."



"We deliver

support for industry-standard application programming interfaces."



"We couldn't figure out any other way to make this product
operate with any other vendor's product."




"We operate

in a fully heterogeneous environment."



"If our product doesn't work, we can always blame the other
vendors."




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"Fully

object-oriented at the physical and logical levels."



"Out only object is to get payment. Good luck on finding the
logic."

Excerpted

from Techno Vision II



By Charles Wang


Published by McGraw-Hill


Courtesy: Computer Associates

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