At 09:59 PM 5/25/98 -0400, Dean Anderson wrote:
Somehow, I think networking is and will remain hard enough that there won't be very many such idiots in the networking marketplace. I concede that this might be an unreasonable expectation however.
This is already demostrobly wrong. Look at the Fortune 500 - or any group of "large corporations" - and see who makes these type of decitions. I wouldn't hesitate to give you 10 to 1 odds that well over half of these individuals couldn't tell ethernet from token ring. Now, the good ones have "smart" people helping them, making recomendations or some such, but they still make the final decision. And a lot of times the marketing/sales guy can get in and make their mind up for them before a recomendation is made. Or the sales guy plays golf with the president or something and does the deal that way - with absolutely zero technical input. Marketing is designed to let the clueless user think he knows what he's talking about, that he's covered all the bases, and that he understands the technology. All while touting the particular product's strengths and completely ignoring its weaknesses. This makes it hard for a technical person to explain why the manager is making a bad decision - he thinks he knows enough to make it himself 'cause the sales guy told him all he needs to know. Too many times have I tried to explain why something was bad to someone in "authority", only to have them pick the product against which I was recommending because they were a bigger company or had more history or some other factor which has nothing to do with technical competence. Oh, and price comes to mind too. ;) BTW, this does not mean there are not any good managers out there. Just that there are more than enough bad ones to make a company very successful off their incompetence.
--Dean
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