Lions, and Tigers, and SaaS! Oh my!

The true colors of IT were on full display in a recent article in InformationWeek. In the article Growing Pains by Andy Dornan he makes the most accurate comment I’ve seen in the tech press in a long time. “Forget outsourcing. The real threat to IT pros could be Web 2.0/SaaS” And so it’s been said! From the magazine who’s tagline is “Defining the business value of technology” we see that it’s really in the business of providing apologist fodder for the new Luddites in IT.

As a clear example of the “threat” the author shows how Ken Harris, CIO at nutritional products manufacturer Shaklee, was able to improve services while cutting his IT staff by 20%. So to be clear, the threat is that the CIO will be worthy of his title as a CXO and show the business judgment to manage his area. This is beyond comprehension. The funny part is when IT then declares that it should be viewed as a business driver and not a cost center.

IT has pretended to be empowering business and discusses ROI, but I always get the sense of an alien lying under the skin. The scene from Men In Black with the person with a second set of eyelids blinking from the side gave away their true nature.

IT is to often not populated with a vision of progress and efficiency. Too many technology professionals are not enthusiasts, but retrained mechanics or accountants. They went to tech school, learned a trade and are now practicing it. Any change to technologies, or the dynamics of their jobs are seen as threats. People are in a field defined by change who fear it! It makes no sense to me.

As the article states SaaS is the cornerstone of this threat. SaaS is a threat because it does the unthinkable by removing technology from IT. Saas provides the software company's solutions directly to the business user. In doing this we eliminate the consultants for evaluate the need, the IT departments test and spec, the IT departments to deploy and the help desk to support. So while its massively more efficient and eliminated whole areas of concern IT views it as bad. This is truly alien to me.

While we’re at the early stages of the SaaS and Web 2.0 worlds some things are clear. These are the two most significant trends since the PC itself for empowering business users. SaaS allows the business user to interface with THEIR information. The business benefits of technology are the benefits of using business information better. Many IT organizations evolved to use technology to hinder the business users access to information. While adding the costs of technology, they also hindered the use of the information. SaaS is the answer to liberating businesses access to their critical information, and keeping IT honest.

I think the new tag-line for InformationWeek should be “Dogmatic non-sense for hire.”