Dilbert disses cloud (or at least cloudwashing)

GigaOM

When Dilbert takes aim at cloudwashing, maybe it is the beginning of the end for that annoying practice which threatens the credibility of tech companies.

Dilbert’s boss (he of the awesome two-point hairdo) tells Dilbert to move some of the company’s functions to the Internet but to call the Internet “cloud.” Why? Because no one “will take us seriously unless we’re doing something in the cloud,” says Mr. Two-Points, aka PHB or Pointy-headed Boss. The remedy is to apply mindless jargon to what they’re already doing. This has been the practice of 95 percent of software companies for the past few years –put out an update and call it “cloud.”

Last year, Appirio inaugurated a “Cloudwashies” contest to give the most shameless perpetrators of cloudwashing the dubious acknowledgement they so richly deserved. Oracle and its CEO Larry Ellison — whose miraculous “come-to-cloud” conversion made him the no brainer choice — were winners. So were Salesforce.com and Microsoft — for it’s beyond-irritating “to the cloud” ads. (InformationWeek has its own take here.)