As I mentioned a few days ago, if you’re having trouble getting your software to talk to other software, you probably need to take a look at the culture of the company that wrote it.If the company culture is a top-down hierarchical environment (and I’m not pointing any fingers), this could be the root of the problem in getting the software result you want. The top-down, hierarchical environment tends to stifle cross communication, which is inherently creative, and it can’t avoid the “telephone game effect” where information goes through 12 people before whatever is left of the it arrives wherever it ends up.What’s needed is peer-to-peer communication, which reflects the peer-to-peer nature of the Internet and collaboration inherent in Web 2.0. Part of the reason that Open Source exists was the rise of the Internet and the breaking down of barriers between engineers at various companies. When they started talking, the Internet and all other software as well got better. Internet growth is driven by Open Source software that’s able to collaborate with other software. This is true of monitoring software as well–it has to be able to talk to the systems it’s monitoring. So, next time your programs aren’t playing nice at a customer site, check your organizational comm lines. They may need tuning! Technology Industry