Technical Debt: Maybe Real but Let It Go

October 22, 2015

I read “Letting Go Of Technical Debt.” The argument makes sense to a person developing software or other high technology product or service. The conclusion to the write up is, “Let it go.”

Is the conclusion rock solid?

The answer depends on one’s point of view. Google has a handful of staff who think about technical debt in terms of high interest credit card charges. The idea is that if you don’t accelerate your payments, the debt just keeps on growing. Bad for the debtor. Bad for the credit card company.

There is an interesting variant to the notion of non financial debt. Consider intentional debt. The idea is that a marketer hypes a product or service. The reality is different. The customer and the company end up in the hole.

When I think of search and content processing, a number of case examples come to mind. These range from HP’s and IBM’s assumption that by betting big on information access, these ageing businesses can generate substantial, sustainable, organic revenue to search start ups funded by friends and family.

The challenge is to produce enough money from whatever sources are available to:

Create, bug fix, enhance, and support the search product or service. The costs incur what I believe should be called technical debt. Do search vendors get out of the red? The trials and tribulations of Fast Search and HP Autonomy warrant some study. I think this is technical debt.
Market the product so that sales and revenues flow so that continuous transfusions of cash are not required for the search vendor to operate. I call these and related money issues financial debt.
Build a consistent message for prospects, customers, employees, and stakeholders. Search vendors flip flop from keyword search to Big Data search to customer support services. The lack of a consistent, meaningful presentation of the company and its products or services underscores what I call credibility debt.

Net net: Search and content processing companies incur several types of debt. It is easy to say, “Let it go.” Is that approach fair to investors, ethical in the sense of trying to build a sustainable business, and practical in today’s somewhat soft economy?

For me, I think dealing with debt is essential. Obviously some folks do not agree.

Stephen E Arnold, October 22, 2015

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, Enterprise search, News

Comments

Comments are closed.

Search the site
Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive

Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.