Those crazy plastic-manglers at Mattel have accessorised Barbie with a pink laptop, Bluetooth headset and – get this – a watch, and called her a ‘tech support’.  Forget larking on the beach in a bikini; this babe is having enough fun down in the basement talking idiot users through IP configs, and rummaging around behind the server cabs for that old bag of cable ends.

Turn it off, wait, then turn it back on again

One positive use already identified for the doll – other than wedging the comms room door open – will be to raise the debate concerning women in the male-dominated world of IT.  Reading the reaction to this story in all the usual places, opinion is split between those apparently disgusted that Barbie still exists in 2010, and those (predominately female voices) who find it somewhere in a sliding scale between harmless fun and ‘empowering’.

Let’s not forget that Barbie is a doll for children, most likely girls under the age of ten.  In that context, the ‘tech support’ aspect of this toy is more laudable than most of the other get-ups we know Barbie for.  And we are dying to see the ‘Barbie’s IT Department’ action set that you’ll be able to get with it in time for Christmas.

We are suspicious that ‘cloud computing’ is one of those things that isn’t quite here yet, despite the fact that everyone seems to bang on like it is.  For example, the fountains of knowledge up at Gartner claim we will all be living in cloud cuckoo land by a week next Tuesday (OK so maybe it’s more like a sizeable minority by 2012 or something) but perhaps this is too premature. 

According to Computer Weekly, a recent cloud focused event found that many businesses who had embraced the cloud (that just sounds silly doesn’t it?) boasted IT savings of anything up to 90%.  It’s all to do with harnessing utility processing power at cheap accessible rates rather than running your own datacentre/s blah blah blah.

A cloud, earlier

Now permit us to skirt over all of the technical detail here but, merit-worthy as this all sounds, it doesn’t necessarily address all the niggly stuff that IT departments have to contend with on a daily basis.  More technology… pah…how about better processes for a change?  We are supposed to be masters of technology, but the development of cloud computing seems to have everyone contemplating radically different infrastructure set-ups in order to march to its tune.

In the next ten years, you will likely buy a hybrid car rather than an electric one.  Why?  Because the reality is that near-term.  As such, will all your IT really exist within a cloud, or is it more likely that the weather will gather from time to time and then blow away?

A bit like US presidents pumping trillions into firing pieces of junk at the planet Mars, UK politicians talking big on IT and technology in general are obviously trying to reflect back all the associated positive attributes onto themselves.  What’s not to like about someone painting pretty pictures of a better tomorrow?  A vote winner right there; just wave an iPad around, go on YouTube, get Twitter and Facebook crazy, and promise to shove a big pile of broadband up everyone’s nose.  

Yes, we are a bit cynical.

Passing without comment on this blog at the time, was the sad news that Labour MP David Taylor had died last Boxing Day.  So why mention it now?  Because with many years experience at the sharp end within a sizeable IT department, Mr Taylor was one of the few parliamentarians who understood anything of any substance regarding IT.

Instead, brace yourself.  Not only for the inevitable surfeit of horrifically over-simplified and inaccurate IT-related ramblings from poorly briefing politicos, but also for the ensuing responses from equally ill-at-ease ignoramuses who might in fact have good reason to shout-down their opponent’s tech-drenched manifesto pledge but who will – rather unfortunately – do so really badly.

Right now, somewhere, at the end of some speech-writer’s pen are the words: “After all, we are all IT users now…”

Not ALL of us mate…

Scouring the latest IT news stories to bleat about on this blog, we’ve found it pretty difficult to find anything that isn’t banging on about Google’s Nexus One and other assorted bits of gadgetry being touted as the ‘next best thing’ at the glittering CES event in Las Vegas. 

Forgive the cynicism, but isn’t it true that all these ‘devices’ follow a predictable journey? It goes something like this…

 1) Appear to be conceived as the vision of the world’s social, cultural and business future

2) Get a design and a price tag

3) Launch in a blaze of publicity, despite severely restricted product availability everywhere

4) Everyone (seemingly everyone) goes out and buys one

5) Everyone then brings theirs into work and shows everyone else

6) Oh joy…

Whatever shiny junk gets launched at these shows will likely end up under the noses (and possibly in various broken pieces under the fists) of IT departments, along with users unapologetically wondering why it isn’t as easy/safe as they hoped to integrate it into the company’s IT systems. 

How about this for an idea… a system that automates the integration and management of mobile devices… worth flying to Las Vegas for?  We’d bloody walk there!