Foreword

Like every young industry, the information technology (IT) business is rife with confusing, competitive, and cockamamie terms and acronyms. I have often wondered at the industrywide propensity to invent and promulgate TLAs (three-letter acronyms, of course!). It seems almost refreshing when a new acronym sports four or five letters, or better yet, eschews compressed forms altogether. But no, the favored approach to technology innovation remains confusing acronyms.

This is not an invention of the 21st or even the 20th century. Electric lamps and the internal-combustion powered automobile, both introduced in the late 19th century, were young technology industries that thrived on spurious differentiation. And youth lasts a long time in ...

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