Expensive, Rigid And Painful: What IT Acronyms Really Mean

Technology loves a three-letter acronym (TLA), but those letters often conceal the full horror of what lies beneath. These are the best “real” translations we’ve encountered.

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Acronym Officially stands for Actually stands for
ERP Enterprise resource planning Expensive, rigid and painful
CRM Customer relationship management Customers rarely matter
SLA Sevice level agreement Source of legal acrimony
CAD Computer aided design Complicated and difficult
ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line Always delayed slightly longer
FTP File transfer protocol Files transfer painfully
SMTP Simple mail transfer protocol Some messages terminate permanently
CASE Computer aided software engineering Can’t afford something else
NBN National Broadband Network Nodes being neglected
ACL Access control list Always causes lag
DHCP Dynamic host control protocol Doesn’t help connect PCs
SNMP Simple network management protocol Security not my problem

Any additions? Share them in the comments.


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