The five P's of IT

A quote from Robert X. Cringely to ponder on this morning:

The five P's of IT are Pride, Prejudice, Politics, Price, and Performance, with the last two being by far the least important.

Anyone like to disagree?

Comments

[Vince Smith]

I read his post with interest (in fact I read most of them with interest) and in terms of this post I was more piqued by the comments about the IT profession. In a basic definition their is an IT profession - we work in IT - we get paid to work in IT therefore by the definition of professional then we're not amateurs. However, these words have altered their meanings - and I agree with him on the "...IT workers are a commodity and are treated as such...". That's where we aspire to be knowledge experts and leaders and yet often "..clueless about the technologies they are working with." A lack of investment in skills, training or even making time available to gain understanding.
The other part about creating churn for products, solutions, etc. is just part of a consumer approach - we see the same with cars, toothpaste - it's always new and better or cheaper. We go into replacements - as we switch from this to that so that some vendors lose and some gain. We often don't look at the costs (real and time) of changing. Some IT is so complex - especially as time goes on that the cost of change far outweighs the savings on the new solution. But often IT forces change - built-in obsolescence or just support costs.

The article made me angry, sad, challenged and indifferent all at the same time!