The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT - IT Management - News & Reviews - eWeek.com

The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT

The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT
Written By
eWEEK EDITORS
eWEEK EDITORS
May 28, 2012
3 minute read
eWeek content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT

The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT

Written by Michael Vizard, Illustrated by Brian Moore


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – The BlackBerry

2

Thanks to the wonders of technology, now anybody in the world can e-mail you about their IT problem any time of the day or night.


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – Application Development

3

Talk about the trip down the proverbial rabbit hole. Mostly you get to deal with people who prefer machines to people and can’t understand why people don’t behave like machines. What’s amazing is that the line to get into the rabbit hole gets longer every


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – Golf

4

There is nothing quite as exhilarating as having a well-honed IT strategy destroyed by the business executive who signed a contract during a vendor’s golfing boondoggle.


Advertisement

The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – Head Hunters

5

Having the people in place and the money to pay them is the key to any successful project. So when you lose key people or suddenly have to pay them 20 percent more to keep them, it’s little wonder that most projects are late and over budget.


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – Vista

6

There is nothing like a major upgrade of a ubiquitous operating system to cause all kinds of downstream havoc ranging from broken applications to obsolescence of existing infrastructure because it can no longer handle the load.


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – Management by Book of the Month Club

7

There is nothing scarier than business executives armed with buzzwords such as ‘re-engineering’ or ‘the agile enterprise.’ That have been adopted by careful skimming of the latest business book mentioned in the Wall Street Journal or the Harvard Business


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – CFOs

8

Most IT departments report to CFOs who have little or no knowledge of the real cost of enterprise computing. As a result, they still think of IT as a cost center rather than a tool to drive revenue and maximize profit.


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – Business Process Integration

9

Nothing exposes the flawed inner workings of a company more than a business process integration project and, of course when it fails, it’s always IT’s fault.


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – License Management

10

There is no piece of paper more arcane and more lethal to your career than a poorly written software license contract that can lead to years and years of litigation.


Advertisement

The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – Industry Consolidation

11

There is nothing quite as troubling as waking up in the morning to discover that one of your primary IT suppliers has been acquired by a rival that plans to obsolete the products your company relies on.


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – Globalization

12

CFOs may think low-cost contract labor is great, but managing cultural divides across multiple timelines on projects with hard deadlines is a guaranteed recipe for stress.


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – The End of the Quarter

13

While there are lots of good deals to be had at the end of any quarter, it’s also the time when salespeople promise that their product can fly with the pigs so long as you sign on the dotted line by the end of the fiscal quarter.


The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT – The Merger

14

Any time your company merges with another company of any size, the first place companies look to gain ‘efficiencies of scale’ is by reducing the redundant IT staff.

eWeek Logo

eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site's focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2026 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.