Another to Pass Around
Acronym Shortage to Adversely Impact Tech Sector
Not Enough TLA’s Left Warns Expert
As if concerns of a new Tech Bubble weren’t bad enough, it now seems an even larger crisis is poised to strike the tech sector: a shortage of acronyms. Industry pundits see the current supply of acronyms to be unrealistically constrained and warn that any further disruption in the availability of these necessities could roil the technology sector.
“Cars need oil, tech needs acronyms (CNOTNA). It’s just that simple (IJTS)” says Speaks FurMoolah, principal analyst at MouthPiece Research. “Without acronyms, how will tech buyers appropriately evaluate the ROI, TCO and ROAE of technology?”
“The problem is worse than most recognize”, says tech CEO Cliff “Options” Hanger of MeltDown Messenging Technologies (MDMTI on the NASDAQ). “It’s almost gotten as bad as the California personalized license plate fiasco a few years ago when too many tech CEOs were all vying for the same vanity plate names. I drove my Ferrari for weeks with regular plates until the state added some special characters to the available alphabet choices. Sure, I now have “IPO RULZ 4 ME” on my car, but those days I didn’t have a special acronym for my car were devastating!”
“The lack of acronyms will be especially hard on software and hardware sales forces. They may find their already jammed PowerPoint slides will not accommodate full-length words. Sales people will have to either add additional slides to their decks or start giving their pitches in less technical ways” says blogger Digs DeDirt (blogs.e3#$d,r.com).
Other industry watchers also see the lack of acronyms as impacting productivity, hurting the economy and possibly becoming an issue in the upcoming US presidential elections. “I’d really like to know where each of the candidates stand on the acronym issue” says Red State, CMO of SR1D makers of T3W and .re7 tech velocity impenders. “We’re forming a PAC (political action committee) called MATT (more acronyms to tech) and urging OPS (political operatives) to FFF (fast forward funding) to this issue".
Research firm Punditocrity recently noted that “The tech industry must move away from 3 letter acronyms (TLAs) and now support the 5 character acronym ( FLA) as the new, default acronym standard (DAS).” But a competitor of Punditocrity believes that FLA is too short and that tech execs should immediately move to a more secure, encrypted 27 character acronym using control bits and acronym authenticity checking. Microsoft is even rumored to be developing a 64 character acronym standard while Oracle may be eyeing the acquisition of firm building a 256 character acronym generator and authenticator. No word where SAP stands on this matter.
Not everyone is waiting for new acronym standards to emerge. One tech CEO, speaking only off the record, said that his sales force will now start spelling out words instead of using acronyms. He is worried that this will hurt the street credibility of his sales force but argues “what else can we do?” Likewise a major Helena, Montana VC told us “we’re definitely seeing a marked drop in buzzwords, tech terms and acronyms in the pitches we’re getting this year. 2008 could be the best year for clear communications in technology and we’re afraid of what this will do for the tech sector overall”.
Clear communications? Can the tech sector survive this? Media watchers are also seeing more understandable press releases from tech firms. “Obfuscation has been the TLAs best friend in tech. The lack of acronyms has made our announcements too transparent, too understandable and too straightforward,” says PR flack Lotta Noise at Blithering Media, Inc. “Our clients expect us to confuse prospects – not make them understand!”
Looks like 2008 may be a shake out year for tech. LST (let’s stay tuned)
This is all overblown. The TLA namespace has plenty of life in it. We'll just have to extend the use of acronym translation (AT) to allow more jargon to share the same TLAs. Look how well it's worked for ATM, IP and POP, already!
Posted by: Nathan Gilliatt | January 11, 2008 at 02:58 PM