Leader: Appeal to CIOs' business sense

Grid. Linux. RFID. All guaranteed to send a tingle down the spine of the average IT director - but is that shiver anticipation or utter indifference?

According to research out today from analyst house Datamonitor, only one of those three technologies is actually getting some serious loving from big manufacturing firms - RFID.

So what is RFID doing right that grid isn't? Datamonitor analyst Richard Clifford says there's too much focus on buzzwords and not enough on what grid can actually do for the business that's mulling over dipping into its IT budget.

Vendors get all too excited by the next big tech thing and expect the average CIO to do the same. But while a great big shiny piece of grid or VoIP kit might get salesfolk hopping up and down like a kid at Christmas, CIOs will be left cold by phrases such as 'on-demand', 'utility' or 'grid'.

Quite simply, they're meaningless to IT decision makers, often several degrees from the IT coalface. The effect of their products on a business' front line is what vendors hoping to sway a potential customer into adopting the latest technology trend need to think about.

A CIO doesn't want to hear about RFID, he or she wants to hear about supply chain efficiencies. The decision-maker doesn’t want to hear about Linux, they want to know how it will affect systems' cost of ownership.

As a separate report out this week showed, CIOs are a cautious bunch and nothing will send their wallets back into their pockets more quickly than the mention of anything that sounds too much like hype.

That's why RFID has started to succeed in wangling its way into IT budgets - by changing its image from a buzzword into a solid business-side technology. Of course, RFID had a little help, with entities such as Wal-Mart demanding their suppliers get involved - but Wal-Mart's CIO didn't have such a mandate to help him make up his mind. We're betting he took the leap because it made good business sense.