Shrink wrapped ITIL

Many vendors are doing shrink wrapped ITIL. An example scenario is that a backup and restore tool is reinvented overnight to become a Business Continuity product! This reinvention is especially true about network management solutions. I imagine the scene goes something like this, the marketing department organizes a meeting, displays some ITIL from Wikipedia on a projector, and the next day some pamphlets and gobbledygook is posted on the website. One day no ITIL, the next day shrink wrapped ITIL. The network management solution is reinvented as an Incident, Problem, Capacity, Configuration, Service Level and Financial management product

Now an organization like Microsoft does a reasonable job with their ITIL stuff called MOF. I have no idea why they chose the name MOF, as this is a South African colloquialism for a homosexual! Although it is reasonable I have my issues. There is no such thing as ITIL compliance but as a vendor there is no doubting Microsoft's ITIL enthusiasm and they do set a benchmark, especially with their numerous case studies of how they have used it internally. The evidence and due diligence stretches beyond the odd press release or white paper.

Shrink wrapped ITIL is about low impact enthusiasm that has its origins in marketing and not product design. The service management terms in network management solutions are confusing and ITIL shrapnel. ITIL is not about creating some ticks on a chart. What is behind that tick? How was that tick justified? My impression is that in this context ITIL has become a Punch and Judy show, especially when the tool is associated with "ITIL compliance". Are these vendors able to provide internal and external case studies similar to those established by Microsoft as a benchmark?

There are a large number of network management solution vendors who do not publish or provide any ITIL association. Is this because they realise that these tools are limited to a small passive role in the disciplines of capacity and availability management. The broad conceptual associations in the collateral published by vendors making an ITIL association really stretches the terminology. How much do they really provide before they place a tick next to a discipline, or even a disputed item like a CMDB?

ITIL is a journey and if measurement and compliance certification is required then that path is via ISO 20k. It is possible to place arbitrary ticks against ITIL disciplines, but this is not so easy with ISO 20k. However, ISO 20k is reached via an ITIL journey.