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The Worst Name In The IT Industry -- Check That -- The Worst Name In Business

It’s time to shoot the phrase "End of Life Services."

Type the words "end of life services" into a household-word search engine and you will get half a billion results. While I must admit I didn't read all 504,000,000, I did read a lot and I'm still not sure if those half-billion are tilted toward a place where you can get a degree in Thanatology or toward sources of info on how to recycle outdated gear from Cisco, Sun, and Enterasys.

See, when it comes to the computer stuff, I thought all the current hubbub over recycling and reclaiming and reuse and such meant that the life of computer equipment would be extended -- turned into roof tiles and fence posts and plastic toys, or refurbished for use by others. If that's an accurate grasp of the new movement, then is it really possible to speak of the END of the lives of all those products? Aren't they, rather, undergoing a transformation into a new expression of their molecules, resulting in EXTENSIONS of their lives rather than in ends to them?

So, as a public service, the CIOs Uncensored blog is doing three things: (1) calling on computer makers to drop the term "end of life services" since we have, above, jumped that existential shark; (2) nominating a few replacement terms for EOLS, which has in fact reached the useful end of its life; and (3) asking you, dear readers, to submit your own replacement terms for that exegetical dinosaur. The best submission will receive either $1,000,000 cash OR a glossy 8x10 autographed photo of CIOs Uncensored honcho John Soat, whichever we can lay our hands on more quickly. Please send your entries to bevans@cmp.com.

Suggested Replacement Names for End-of-Life Services, Which Has Reached its End of Life
1) Reuse and Recycling Policies
2) Responsible Disposal Policies
3) Next Life: What To Do With Old Computer Stuff
4) Extend IT, Don't End It!

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