[29] in Tooltime
Re: vendor hell
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barbara Goguen)
Wed Feb 21 10:29:48 1996
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 10:29:35 -0500
To: Kim <kim@MIT.EDU>, tooltime@MIT.EDU, cec@MIT.EDU, pakulat@MIT.EDU
From: goguen@MIT.EDU (Barbara Goguen)
>The down side of Remedy is security and unified name space
>management. Regardless of which product we select, we'll be managing
>our own name space, so I think that point is moot.
I think there are more down sides than this. Tha Mac client, though it
installs, is not particularly robust. The customizability of screens is
less flexible than Scopus'. It interacts oddly with the Oracle database
back-end, replicating data each time you include a data item in a new
schema. If I went through my notes on Remedy, I'm sure there are other
"down sides" I could point to.
>
>The advantage of Remedy is that they are proven in the market (the
>largest help desk supplier, anyway), and the software is easily
>extensible to meet both current and future needs.
They may be more proven in the market than Scopus, but I think the title of
largest help desk supplier could be contested. I know I read somewhere,
maybe in HDI's material, that Vantive is the largest help desk supplier.
And I think the extensibility criteria probably applies to all the vendor
products we are looking at. Remedy is no more extensible than Scopus or
Vantive.
>
>The down side of Scopus is their unresponsiveness. They don't seem too
>willing to negotiate on price nor fix our installation problems. This
>makes me wonder whether they will be willing (and capable) of
>delivering on the customizations we want. Another thing to keep in
>mind is that they have only 200 installed sites, none of them are
>academic.
This I will agree with, though I will add that they have been willing to
devote inordinate amounts of time trying to fix our installation problems,
they just don't seem to have the expertise to do so. Are you sure that
Scopus has only 200 installed sites? I know Dick Campbell indicated that
he knew of 200 sites from which he could draw references, but I wouldn't
assume that that represents their whole install base.
>
>I think we need to face the hard reality that there isn't an ideal
>solution. I don't have a lot of confidence that Vantive will be any
>better than Scopus or Remedy, and don't think we should spend a lot of
>time investigating.
>
I'm not advocating taking a long look at Vantive, just a closer look than
we have at this point. All we've done so far is read their Web page, the
marketing material, and had 1 initial phone contact. If they were able to
provide a product that installed easily on all 3 platforms, ran effectively
on an Oracle database, had the extensibility/customizability of at least
the other two products, made use of Oracle's SQL*Net and SNS current
versions/drivers, and came in at a price range we could afford, wouldn't
that make the investigation worthwhile? (I know, maybe I'm dreaming...)
>Each product we've considered has its pitfalls. I think we need to
>accept the fact that there isn't an ideal solution, and make a
>decision to go with a particular product. What do other people think?
I too would really like to know what others of you think.
>
>Based on what we've recently learned about Scopus, and past experience
>with other vendors, I think we assume the least risk for the greatest
>benefit deciding on Remedy. Although Remedy doesn't meet all our
>needs, perhaps we can, over time, rally with other universities to
>push Remedy to implement the features we want.
Certainly, if we go this route, it makes my job over the next few weeks
considerably easier. I only hesitate because it may make all of our jobs
down the road more difficult than they need to be, especially as we have
not explored all possibilities. I am however, happy to go in the direction
that a consensus or majority of the group wants to go in.
-barbara
goguen@mit.edu
617-253-6135
