In 1976, “The Who” published the suggestive lyrics of “Squeeze Box”, which to many who actually listened to the words described the proverbial accordion and its obnoxious playing throughout the night giving no rest to the listener. This should be the mantra of the IT function, for Squeeze Box’s prophetic words describes what Corporate America has been doing to IT infrastructures for the better part of 50 years.
In the 1960s under the war cry of “Cost Reduction”, the mainframe, for lack of better words, became ubiquitously adopted and coined the quintessential definition of “Centralized” computing. The desktop came in any color you like as long as it was “green”. The “Green Screen” terminals were all the rage, with people sitting down to their “dumb” terminals and typing away at a better living through data entry. With its phosphorus tube guns, the terminal was the multi functional, it could impair your vision while tanning your face all while you were inputing names and addresses of your local optometrist and dermatologist. Later we saw wonderful new changes to the environment, such as the advent of “amber” screens, wow!
Later in 1980s, long after the printed circuit board, the PC found its way to the desktop under the war cry of “Cost Reduction”. The birth of Distributed computing came about. PC was the new desktop with the power of crashing our own environment, giving birth to the computer virus, blue screen, hacking, and later the advent of Al Gore’s Internet…
Today, we are introducing the Virtual Desktop Initiative, under the war cry of “Cost Reduction”. The Virtual Desktop Initiative boasts the virtualization of desktops allowing the centralization of desktop images to be accessed remotely by the users. Some may argue that this initiative was set in motion far earlier in the mid-80s with Sun’s “The network is the Computer”, or later with “Applications as a Service” or ASP, but only now does it have the potential of global impact and to once again squeeze the box. However, for the IT professional, this is no surprise, for even within their own organizations, they have seen their own IT function go from distributed computing, “empower” the branches and allow them to services their clients with local criteria as the guide. Then later, centralized computing to “leverage our investments” by “standardizing” our common technology functions and rid these “islands of technology”.
So… Essentially,
Corporate’s got a squeezebox
She wears on her chest
And when IT comes home
They never get no rest
‘Cause she’s playing all night
And the music’s all right
Corporate’s got a squeezebox
IT never sleeps at night…
So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;” I wish us all good luck…
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Founding and leading technology-oriented service organizations since 1988. Specializes in Public speaking relating to Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Communication Network Management, Network Security, Managing your Team, and IP Telephony /VoIP / IP Communication.
