What If Yoda Ran IBM?

Esther Schindler writes to mention that one IT leader who came from big business found himself in quite another world when he transitioned into a smaller business, specifically with respect to the amount of attention from their vendors. He presents an amusing approach with a familiar twist. "Not only are the IBMs of the world leaving money on the table, they're also risking future sales. The IT leaders at small organizations will in many cases be employed by larger organizations someday. Why alienate them? Vendors could engage IT leaders in small organizations now and build brand loyalty. How could they make such a business model work? Let's imagine (with apologies to George Lucas) what Yoda might do if he were running a large consultancy."

All the software would be written in Forth

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Which might be a Good Thing.

ahh Yoda..

[Anonymous Coward]

I was always wondering what's the name of that guy with the big ears, making the computers run..

Tag

[Anonymous Coward]

Tag: stillsuckitwould :-)

EASY!

[CajunArson]

All Yoda would have to do is look at any company and just say: "No, too old"
Some of the companies would then get really bent out of shape and turn evil later, while other ones would just annoy Yoda until he gave up and threw them a support contract he never has to fulfill since he dies!

Yodanomics

[clem]

Well, let's see. If Yoda ran IBM of the 1980's like he ran the Jedi Counsel, he'd probably remain fixed in his devotion to the old ways, overlook some growing threat and then watch helplessly as the order he watched over was overcome and twisted into an empire of unimaginable might.

Wow. Thank goodness that didn't happen.

yeah, jar jar.

[User 956]

Let's imagine (with apologies to George Lucas) what Yoda might do

Don't bring George Lucas into this. You'll end up with a lanky, obnoxious rastafarian running the place.

Re:EASY!

[BigMike]

Yoda dies????>

Yoda quotes about running IBM:

[ForestGrump]

Run IBM I do.

Feel the force...force of Cell processor.

Conference not with a phone, but with the force.

If Yoda ran IBM

[kindbud]

The company would be called Machines Business International, Yes.

The CEO would be Steve Ballmer, the company would be run out of Redmond, WA, and it would market the dominant desktop OS in the world. But Yoda would think he was still in control running things out of Yarmonk.

On the other hand, their servers would run quite well in damp conditions.

Re:Yoda quotes about running IBM:

[pravuil]

Big blue, small green, become one it will. Destiny misquoted. Chosen one am I.

WTF?

[Malached]

"During my first year at Sequoia I concentrated on improving the processes that affect operational excellence." ... I annoyed the F*&%( out of the people who did the real work. "With these processes largely working, I must now spend my time providing a technological vision" .. when they started ignoring me, I came up with lots of useless documents, to pretend that I was actually worth the ridiculous sum I was paid.

Vista of Death will destroy iRebels

[kubusja]

But once our mighty Vista of Death is completed ... no one will be able to stand up against Emperor Gates ... We will find and finally destroy iRebels!

Re:Dear Lord

[belthize]

      Learning to identify your core competencies so you can leverage your resources in an effort to devlop effective intra-deparmental synergy
thus allowing you to devote time to identifying emerging paradigms is what being an MBA is all about .... or so I'm told.

Belthize

What If Yoda ran IBM?

[Phat_Tony]

He'd dual Bill Gates with a lightsaber?

Re:EASY!

[grasshoppa]

Sit down, jr, you might be in for a shock:

Vader is Luke's father. Oh, and snape kills dumbledor ( after a gay affair ).

Why not in C?

[rabiddeity]

Actually, I think he could do it equally well in C++, following some special guidelines. Within a given program, either all loops would either begin with "do", or none of them would. In addition, Yoda's code would never use exception handling [wikipedia.org].

Re:Yoda quotes about running IBM:

[kcbrown]

"Begun, this clone war has".

(in reference to the emergence of Compaq)

Re:EASY!

[gknoy]

.. well, it may Slashdot, but that was surprising. :)

Ah.. yes..

[jrivar59]

W.W.Y.D. ?

Re:IBM doesn't do much well at all...

[AKAImBatman]

I use IBM "products" (calling them that is generous) on a daily basis. Grandparent is right on. If you honestly think those software products are "awesome", you fall into one of the following categories:

• You are in management. Congratulations, you've been suckered.
  
• You have never seen anything other than IBM software. All of Slashdot offers its condolences.
  
• You need your head checked. Feel free to post an "Ask Slashdot" asking for references.
  
• You are an IBM shill. (Doesn't really seem their style, but there's a first time for everything!)
  

Yoda speaks backwards.

[dwalsh]

But this guy speaks asswards:

"With such a small shop I have to spend a great deal of my time maintaining operational excellence."

...plugged out the the kettle from the UPS and plugged the server back in.

"During my first year at Sequoia I concentrated on improving the processes that affect operational excellence."

...stopped answering user queries with "Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?"

"With these processes largely working, I must now spend my time providing a technological vision for Sequoia."

... 1 week surfin' = 3 slide vision Powerpoint.

"As you can imagine, creating a fully functional disaster recovery plan requires an enormous amount of time--and, as I noted above, I've been focused on operational excellence, not long-term strategic planning."

... No, we have never tested restoring from the backups.

You know what happened? IBM consultants met someone a bovine coprologist even mightier than them, and that scared them.

Re:$25,000 for disaster recovery?

[Joebert]

What does that have to do with Yoda running IBM ?

Re:Vista of Death will destroy iRebels

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't even see Emperor Gates.

Defeat his apprentice, Darth Chairidius, first you must.

I gots ta say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha! Bovine coprologist - I love it! Is that anything like a terminological inexactitudarian?

Re:Did you say that with a lifp?

[Dachannien]

Have you seen Yoda's hands? He'd have to use the Force just to type all those parentheses!

Bullshit Bingo?

[sr8outtalotech]

I noticed from the article that $25,000 was the budget for implementing a fully functional plan. In addition the consultants must be experienced. Developing the plan is his job but I'm guessing his non-profit is not only cheap but has unrealistic expectations regarding what a disaster recovery plan that is fully functional entails. Being realistic, if their IT infrastructure gets wiped out by a flood, why bother with disaster recovery...they probably don't have the budget to replace anything before the insurance kicks in let alone have any type of backup sites/redundant infrastructure/replacement personnel available.

Another implication of the article is that only large consulting firms can do a quality job that adheres to best practices. "I'd like access to the same expertise that my colleagues at larger companies have." Could he really mean, he'd like the same expertise that his colleagues have at larger companies but for $15/hr. Isn't that what Craigslist is for?

I got out my bullshit bingo card and almost won...

strategic concerns
providing outstanding technology to our colleagues
strategic value
operational excellence
operational excellence
technological vision
technical vision
business vision
operational excellence
tried-and-true management principles
best practices

If only the same phrases weren't used over and over.

easy

[geekoid]

His lack of vision would result in the employees getting murdered, and he would go hide in a swamp.

Re:newsflash:

[mollymoo]

[CIO mag] has the absolute worst S/N ratio of any online mag out there, and the article content generally isn't that good either.

Well, the articles are written by and for CIOs. When bullshitters are your target market ...

Re:Tag

[StellarFury]

Terrible modding. Please, someone reading at -1 bump this up for funny.

Re:Why not in C?

[Dr. Cody]

Don't expect any boolean variables, either. Only the Sith deal in booleans.

Re:Yodanomics

[morgan_greywolf]

Re:Yodanomics (Score:2, Insightful)
by ttapper04 (955370) Alter Relationship on Wednesday December 05, @06:48PM (#21591609)
Please mod insightful.

Thank you.

Wow! It worked! Here, lemme try:

Please mod funny.

Thank you.

Re:I waited to reply

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you're a programmer - and if you really believe your own BS, it's no wonder you're HomelessInLaJolla. :-)

If Yoda ran IBM?

[Orion Blastar]

Everyone knows that IBM uses Star Trek strategy and not Star Wars strategy. That is how OS/2 bombed despite having a "Star Trek" theme and name of OS/2 3.0 Warp.

Just make an OS/3 based on Linux and call it OS/3 1.0 Yoda. Modify WINE to run the OS/2 API into Linux as well. Make sure that all IBM Windows software works on WINE, and has Linux ports as well.

Instead OS/3 1.0 Yoda on every new IBM PC sold, and also port it to the Mainframe, iSeries, pSeries, etc systems as well.

Design Yoda to be so simple that Young Jedis can use it as well as the older adults with no computer knowledge at all.

Take the Firewall/AntiVirus protection and call it "The Force".

License OS/3 1.0 Yoda to other OEMs like Compaq, Dell, Gateway, ASUS, Acer, etc.

Re:EASY!

[Jesus_666]

Oh, and snape kills dumbledor ( after a gay affair ).

See, it's changes like that one why I refuse to watch the digitally remastered Star Wars movies. Those characters didn't even appear in the original movies!

If Yoda ran IBM

[Linker3000]

Desks, lower would they be.

Re:Why not in C?

[heinousjay]

What's more absolute than saying "Only the Sith deal in absolutes"?

Re:Did you say that with a lifp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oblig xkcd [xkcd.org]