IBM’s Scary Move

In his post IBM Wants to Bypass Tech Departments, Too Ben Worthen notes that "It isn’t just Google that’s bypassing corporate tech departments. Old guard business-software companies, too, are starting to realize it may be more important to win over workers than the IT guys."

Scary stuff from IBM if you are a CIO. Up until now the assumption was that the CIO was the final arbiter of what users could and could not do. Sometimes the exec team overrode that assumption, eg. the CFO demanding that SAP be used because that is what he used at his last company. But IBM is taking the view that there is no need to involve the middleman (the IT department) when you can go straight to the users.

This highlights a number of industry changing issues:

• The traditional IT department has lost the respect of the technology vendors who feel that involving the IT function will not add value to engaging with users.
• The traditional IT department is on the verge of losing control of the IT assets within the organisation and all the issues that go with that, eg. security and support.
• IBM would appear to be wedging out the IT function, probably with a view to replacing it with IBM’s IT service offerings.

This is all smart commercial stuff from IBM. It should serve as a wake-up call to CIOs globally. If users perceive that dealing with IBM is more valuable than dealing with the IT function then Darwinism will run its course. At some point the CIO’s position will become untenable as it becomes apparent that his/her role as head of IT is purely titular.