On Twitter and via blogs, I subscribe to feeds from a bunch of vendors: HP, EMC, NetApp, Xiotech, Compellent, etc. (Please, someone point me at some good feeds for HDS, IBM, etc. Admittedly I’ve not spent a lot of time looking for them, but I’m still keen on finding them…)
There are days when I’m sorely tempted to find every vendor that I subscribe to on Twitter and unfollow. Why? Well, it’s not because I’ve lost interest in the industry, it’s just because I’m tired of the message that keeps on being sent. You see, Twitter has become a virtual boxing ring, except the fights aren’t by Queensbury rules, they’re all-in rumbles that have little attention to manners or what people are really interested in reading – facts and figures, real life analyses and implementation experiences, etc.
It’s all a bit petri dish at times – I sometimes imagine that it’s like watching an ethnic conflict starting from the very beginning. If you look at those conflicts and try to trace back reasons, it becomes a morass of “he did / no he did / no she said / no she said” style arguments that just can’t be unpicked; people don’t choose winners in such arguments, they get fed up and walk away from them, or become exasperated with both sides and choose a third option. I know I reach the point where I don’t care. I don’t care that X said Y about Z this week and it was a lie, because last week Z said a lie about X so it’s all just a fetid stink of payback.
I’m fed up. I suspect many others are too. So I’m asking all vendors out there to focus on customers and information, rather than doing your best to kick the crap out of each other. Who is with me on this one?
