By Steve Curcuru

Some things in life, like gravity and taxes, surely wax eternal. Computers with just one slot too few, installs that reach the final floppy before the fatal failure, and tech-support lines where we remain "the next caller in line" for hours are the periodic elements served at our digital table. Just as gravity’s grip wieghs more heavily upon us with each passing year, the force of FUD exerts its inexorable pull on our professional lives.

The possessor of this mysterious force truly rules the industry with god-like power. Only once in a professional lifetime does this force shift its center – but the seismic shift of our lifetime has occurred. The classic Armonkian FUD has finally met its Darwinian match and succumbed to the Redmondian strain. Yes, my fellow high-tech managers, it’s true – that blue, pin-stripped, wingtipped deity, long worshiped in glass cathedrals, and air-conditioned temples, has fallen prey to a newer, nimbler beast with glitter in its GUI eyes.

Though many a mainframe manager fears it comes from the Gates of Hell itself, the battle is done – the Redmondian FUD rules. Even the hallowed halls of Justice fear grappling with this beast. After a long look in its Windows (with the proper search warrant, of course), the "other, lesser Washingtonians" were seen to flee the field. In just over a decade, since its Trojan DOS was cleverly introduced to the Armonk environment, the Redmondian FUD has mutated from a primitive, isolated C-prompt variant to its present interlinked, GUI-fied, preinstalled form. In a clasic case of "Carpe DOSiem" – "Sieze the Disk Operating System" – the Redmondian version has siezed the market and wrought massive change. The scale of the onrushing extintion is staggering. Vanishing species include the once-ubiquitous dumb terminal and millions of tape reels. Entire civilizations built upon glass houses are tumbling down. Those who once controlled the Three Furies, "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt," are now victims of their own disease, suffering the exact symptoms they once spread.

As paralysis and confusion settle ever deeper into the Armonkian realm, the Redmondian FUD oozes into every pore of our industry. No company is safe, no mainframe involiate. Even as I speak, tendrils of client/server creep upward through our organizations, draining data from the Armonkian wells. Soon, fellow IS managers, the deed will be done. Soon the C-change will be complete, and our COBOL centurions will be but a memory. And if there be a doubter amongst you – if one of your number rails against the encroaching dark, strives to bar the Gates, and insists this must not stand – simply ask them to complete the classic mantra: "Nobody ever got fired for buying ______."

I rest my case.