"War on complexity" is a catchy sound bite, but it does a poor job of characterizing the issue central to Ellison's campaign: total cost of ownership (TCO). That may be because TCO enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame back in the 1990s, before falling flat on its face. Except for Citrix's MetaFrame and a few other pockets of success, thin-client computing and other assaults on TCO have largely disappointed.

Not that corporate IT hasn't tried. Browser-based versions (and their server counterparts) of hundreds of mainstream and custom-tailored applications have been widely deployed. But the majority of client systems running them are fat pigs. IT has done little to reduce costs on the client side. The way money was growing on trees until about a year ago, it was hard to blame them. Nobody was ready to get serious about lowering technology's TCO. The TCO issue didn't resonate with anyone. But today's belt tightening makes the time right for a TCO comeback. Ellison just can't call it TCO. Who would listen if he dusted off a passé acronym like that?

According to my e-mail, the people who need to listen -- the business leaders -- are still turning a deaf ear. One reader said it was naïve of me to think that the business people will listen to an IT manager who suggests -- as Ellison does -- that they bend their process around the software instead of the software around the process.

Tech Update reader and Canadian solution provider Robert Werner says that "on the matter of principle, you, Larry Ellison, and I are in full agreement. Companies should standardize their internal processes so that generic software will work effectively in all of them." But Werner points out that in his experience "there is a wide gulf between [what management should do and will do], between 'what management dictates' and 'what their bureaucracy carries out.'" Is IT spending, like smoking, a bad habit? There's a scary thought. The addicts want to quit, but can't. Part of the problem is that lowering TCO remains a fuzzy goal. No one can really tell you exactly how much -- if anything -- you'll save by re-engineering some or all of your company's IT infrastructure around solutions that promise lower TCO.

Since the 1980s, Citrix has delivered multiuser OS/2 and Windows solutions that promise lower TCO. I remember discussing the TCO benefits of these Citrix products with then CEO Ed Iacobucci. I asked Iacobucci why the company's home page didn't offer a TCO calculator to let potential customers estimate the savings they could generate with the use of Citrix solutions (compared to the conventional fat client - fat server approach). Ed explained that while lowered TCO was a benefit, most buyers were more interested in the infrastructure management benefits of centralized control.

Indeed, decadent spending in the IT sector has marked the past two decades. With a great solution like Citrix's, few if any business processes were sacrificed in the name of reducing complexity. End users had the same applications and the same experience. The only difference was that their CPUs and memory were moved to the server.

But with core business applications like CRM and ERP, much more must be sacrificed in order to lower TCO by reducing complexity. Existing business processes essentially end up being compromised and commoditized by companies like Oracle that expect you to take the software as is, out of the box. As Werner suggests, it's pretty much impossible to justify this approach to business decision makers (as opposed to IT managers) who are married to the old way of doing things -- when money grew on trees.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that IT managers lack the tools to make their point. Smokers who want to quit are often amazed at how well-equipped their therapists are in helping them to justify and cope with the change. Why should the relationship between IT managers and business decision makers be any different?

If Oracle and other companies truly believe that they have a TCO case to make, they need to equip IT managers with the right tools (such as TCO calculators) to demonstrate, beyond any doubt, that significant savings can be achieved if the business decision makers are willing to make a few compromises.

Oracle is making its TCO case with a number of tools and services. "We have something free called the e-Valuator that can build a model based on how you answer certain questions," said a company spokesperson. "Oracle also offers free two-hour e-business planning sessions where you can do some higher-level modeling and determine how a deployment might impact the bottom line." If that's not enough, you can get your wallets out and tap into Oracle's iDiscovery services. Oracle's consultants will spend two to four weeks at your site performing a solutions value assessment that nets you a serious ROI model. All of these offerings come from Oracle's consulting group.

Oracle isn't alone. Other companies are trying to equip IT managers with proof that TCO-reducing initiatives can have a profound effect on the bottom line. Vendors regularly turn to research outfits to prepare lengthy documents that can be handed out to customers. Earlier this year, IBM commissioned IDC to compare the TCO of enterprise resource management solutions running on IBM eServer iSeries servers to competing solutions that run on Intel-based platforms such as Windows, Netware, Unix, and Linux. Focusing on economic impact, the white paper makes a strong argument that any bean counter would love for moving to iSeries servers. In terms of furnishing IT managers with the tools to persuade business decision makers, the white paper is a step in the right direction, but it still doesn't map to every business environment. More needs to be done.

IT managers want to do the right thing. But IT has always been a cost center, and end users usually make the rules. Until IT managers can make a convincing case, they'll be forced to repeat past mistakes. Until companies talking about lower TCO provide the right tools -- and stand behind their data -- little if anything will change.

What do you think? Share your thoughts with your fellow readers at ZDNet TechUpdate's Talkback, or write directly to david.berlind@cnet.com.

Got a great tip? An industry rumor? Or do you want to submit your own column to ZDNet TechUpdate? Send David your submission, and if we use it, you'll be compensated with some of the cool vendor schwag that arrives in our mailboxes on a daily basis.