This is one of those postings that's going to take you a paragraph or so to figure out what the heck this has to do with technology and/or business.

Bear with me.

I've been flipping through my latest copy of Smithsonian Magazine (What? You think I spend all my time dealing with widgets and wadgets from Silicon Valley?). There's a book excerpt from a new biography on Dwight Eisenhower, specifically about those anxious days before, during and after the Normandy Invasion.

Eisenhower was in charge of the entire Allied forces and the mastermind of the invasion. If it had failed, the good guys would have lost World War II. Period.

In other words, no pressure.

It was the most massive invasion ever executed. 170,000 soldiers, sailors, pilots and marines storming the Normandy shores to liberate all of Europe from Hitler's armies. There were a million reasons it could have failed and "Ike" knew it.

What touched me about the article is a reprint of a handwritten letter by Eisenhower, himself, written in advance taking sole responsibility for failure. Fortunately, he didn't need too.

My question: where is this same maturity, courage and integrity in business today, specifically the technology industry.

Can you imagine Steve Ballmer issueing a handwritten apology taking full responsibility for all the aggravation Vista has caused users since it's debut a year ago?

Nope. Instead Microsoft (like all tech companies) just issues patches and fixes and newer versions and press releases with spin versions skirting the truth. Vista stinks.

It's not just Microsoft. They're just a big, obvious company to highlight. The entire tech industry does it. It's the culture. Don't admit your product is buggy and crashes customer's systems, eats their time and drives them crazy. Just rush out a new version. Charge 'em for it, if you can.

The whole reason we have terms like "beta", version 1.0, version 2.0, version 2.1, etc.in our lexicon is because the tech industry never just says "Sorry, we blew it and we take sole responsibility for releasing a product obviously not ready for market".

If Dwight Eisenhower had the integrity to put his integrity on the line taking responsibility for possibly losing World War II to Hitler, then why can't Joe CEO of tech company xyz do the same for something far less important - like selling a bad product to an unsuspecting customer base?

That's my tsk tsk to the tech industry.

To all of you business owners and entrepreneurs on the way up, I implore you: be like Ike!