Over the last 4,000+ postings I have read an even larger number of presentations, papers, etc.
We all start discussions from what we know best so those presentations/papers/etc. started with a position, product or technology best known to the author.
No surprise there.
What happens next is no surprise either but it isn’t the best next step, at least for users/customers.
Your requirements, generally stated, can be best met by the author’s product or technology.
I am certainly not blameless in that regard but is it the best way to approach a user/customer’s requirements?
By “best way” I mean a solution that mets the user/customer’s requirements, whether that includes your product/technology or not.
Which means changing the decision making process from:
- Choose SQL, NoSQL, Semantic Web, Linked Data, Topic Maps, Graphs, Cloud, non-Cloud, Web, non-Web, etc.
- Create solution based on choice in #1
to:
- Define user/customer requirements
- Evaluate cost of meeting requirements against various technology options
- Decide on solution based on information from #2
- Create solution
I can’t give you the identity but I once consulted with a fairly old (100+) organization that had been sold a state of the art publishing system + installation. It was like a $500K dog that you had to step over going in the door. Great product, for its intended application space, utterly useless for the publishing work flow of the organization.
We all know stories like that one. Both in the private sector as well as in various levels of government around the world. I know a real horror story about an open source application that required support (they all do) which regularly fell over on its side, requiring experts to be flown in from another country. Failing wasn’t one of the requirements for the application, but open source mania lead to its installation.
I like open source projects and serve as the editor of the format (ODF) for several of them. But, choosing a technology based on ideology and not practical requirements is a bad choice. (full stop)
Its unreasonable to expect vendors to urge user/customers to critically evaluate their requirements against a range of products.
Users are going to have to step up and either perform those comparisons themselves or hire non-competing consultants to assist them.
A vendor with a product intended to meet your requirements (not theirs of making the sale) won’t object.
Perhaps that could be the first test of continuing discussions with a vendor?