Software Snobs

I often think about how I got into MS products instead of say Oracle or IBM. It’s actually not all that hard to comprehend. I got into MS the same way most people get into their fields. MS was available to me. When I first started, I was in a very small company, and we had SQL Server 6.0 and Windows and Exchange. I also had full access to MSDN and a group of guys who were experts in MS technologies. So it’s easy, you learn what you have available. Like kids, right? They learn life by watching their parents. They learn what they have access to.

Now, that being said, I always wondered why more companies don’t make their products more available. Take Informatica for instance. I’m not really meaning to pick on them, but they’re just the ones who I’ve had dealings with most recently. The same could be said for IBM, and in some cases these days even MS. You can’t just download Informatica’s products and put them in your lab and learn how to use them. You can’t even get at the documentation unless you’re a customer. What’s that about? Seriously… you’re closing yourself off to an entire section of your market by making yourself so inaccessible. People really don’t like the closed doors in IT anymore. MS has the right idea. They’ve flooded the market with information on their products and they’re very easy to get a hold of. If my boss wants to implement something MS-related, I can easily go to any number of resources and be somewhat of an expert in as much time as it takes me. Let’s take something like Informatica though. You can’t just surf the web and find dozens of resources and read up on it, because the information simply isn’t there. Sure, you can find scatterings here and there, but try to find a book on PowerExchange on Amazon, and then try to find a book on Integration Services and see which one yields more results. The point is simply this… people learn what they have access to, and once you understand that simple rule, it just doesn’t make sense to close off your market like that. Why wouldn’t you want people being able to familiarize themselves with your products? Why wouldn’t you want people to be able to at least get extended trials of your products so they can build that skill set? The more people know about your products, the more likely they are to use them, right?

I recently pulled Hyperion out of my environment and went with SSAS. Why? It’s easy. Because there aren’t nearly as many Hyperion resources out there as there are SSAS. There aren’t nearly as many people who know Hyperion as there are who know SSAS. It’s simple math. I’m setting us up for success because should our Hyperion guy ever leave, we’ve got a much smaller talent pool to choose his replacement from. But if our SSAS guy leaves, I’ve got tons of people to choose from. And I’m not getting into a discussion on the merits of using one over the other, I’m just saying that from a resource standpoint, it’s smarter to go with SSAS. Just like it’s smarter to go with SSIS instead of Informatica. Is Informatica a better product? Well, better is a hard line to walk. It’s certainly older, so it’s more mature, but better? I guess that depends on who you ask. However, I’d go with SSIS any day of the week because of how easy it is to find resources. I can install SSIS on my desktop and play with it and run through scenarios, etc. I can just write the user group and ask any number of several dozen people for advice. I can throw a dart at Monster.com and hit someone with SSIS experience. I can go to Amazon and get books. There are user websites and 3rd party controls. Let’s face it… SSIS is everywhere, and Informatica is a closed members-only club. So what makes a better tool? Again, it all depends on how you look at it. Informatica may be a more mature tool, but nobody’s going to care if they can’t get the information they need to make it work.

MS has kinda fallen off the boat too, and I’m not sure why. See, I usually rely on my MSDN subscription for software. If there’s something I want to play around with, I just download it and put it in my lab and go to town. And there’s usually such a host of learning resources it’s pretty easy to find out what I need. But for some reason, they’ve decided not to put the new OpsMgr(formerly MOM) up for download. You can download a trial, which is better than nothing, but why not MSDN? OpsMgr is part of the new System Center suite, and the other members of SC are up on MSDN, as are the previous versions of MOM. So why not this one? Personally, I fail to see what they gain by closing off their market like that.

Oracle is excellent. You can go to Oracle.com and download anything they sell for free. No time limits, no software keys, nothing. You can download a full copy of their enterprise DB and install it in your lab and play with it till you’re blue. Of course, I’m not making any statements about their license agreement, I’m just saying what’s actually possible. I originally learned Oracle that way. And you just can’t do that with IBM. You can’t just go download Tivoli and run it in your lab (at least I don’t think you can). You have to get sales people involved, get a PO, etc. It’s all just so messy. But with Oracle you can download whatever you like and just go to town. Within the past couple years though, IBM has released a free version of DB2 that you can download, so you can now at least get some of the concepts down. They’re all doing that you know… Oracle, MS, IBM. You can get free versions of their DBs. They won’t be enterprise versions, but at least you can do something. I’m not sure if Sybase does it or not, but it shock me to hear they do.

So all you vendors out there who think you’re too good for everybody, just remember this… if you make it hard enough to learn your product people will stop caring. They’ll go with someone else, and leave you behind. And I know that most of you are doing fine now. Informatica for instance isn’t hurting, I’m sure. But how much better would they be doing if their products were easier to come by, and if there were a whole host of books and training videos, and websites, and whitepapers?

And MS… come on… put OpsMgr on MSDN already. Don’t make me come up there.