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Interesting to see how the other side works
 

    It is very interesting to be attending a technical sales train conducted by trainers on the other side of the fence. I've been through Day 2 of 5, and can really see the effort they have put into their SOA story, and focus they have in the same story, as shown in their product backing, and also the aggressiveness and confidence in knowing and taking advantage of their competitor's weakness,  and turning their own weakness around.  I'm especially impressed with their virtualisation story.

     

    As I sit there listening, how I wish I can say the same for the side of the camp I'm in, but I guess I just have to wait and see…

     

    But I'm also pretty amused with some of their misconception with Microsoft camp. I'm going to share some of these just for your amusement…

  1. One of the students ask, "There are more .Net developers than Java developers in the market, so it is difficult to convince the .Net shops to convert". The trainer replied, "Sure, they just took their VB programmers and stamp them with a .Net chop. Schools can teach .Net as it is more primitive, which don't have 2-phase commit, security, [can't remember]".

    2. [Kit]I don’t know which country the student is from, so I'm not sure how much truth is there really, but there isn't any truth in it as far as Singapore is concern, from what I know...

  2. The Web Services you have created has to be re-written to be used in yukon, the next version of .Net, when it is released.

    3. [Kit]I was thinking to myself, "Huh? What does web services got to do with database? Can your own database host custom developed web services? BTW, Yukon is already out, and they are preparing to release Katmai!"

  3. You don't find much .Net applications in the market

    4.  

    There are a few others, but I can't recall. But to see them being so ill-informed over the rest of their competitors does show something. But I'll leave that to your own interpretation. But I feel quite sorry for the sales executives, for not being able to know the true story. That, I'm thankful that I'm in a company that is platform neutral. There are still lots of things to learn… :)

     

     

     

Published Wednesday, July 25, 2007 8:22 AM by kitkai
Filed under:

Comments

# Interesting to see how the other side works@ Wednesday, July 25, 2007 8:47 AM

It is very interesting to be attending a technical sales train conducted by trainers on the other side

by Mirrored Blogs

# re: Interesting to see how the other side works@ Wednesday, July 25, 2007 9:42 AM

Ha ha... they just shot themselves in the foot. Popular language is

1. Microsoft .Net

2. Cobol

3. Java

:)

by kitkai

# re: Interesting to see how the other side works@ Wednesday, July 25, 2007 10:59 AM

One other thing the industry always failed to ack is the creation of the multi-vendor SCA (Service-Component Architecture). While it remains to be seen (and proven), the reason for this is to address the single-digit market share of SUN's App Servers, Marketshare as well as shareprice. This is no known secret. Also being removed is SUN's JCP process.

Will this work ? Time will tell.

Also - it really all depends on what YOU think SOA is all about. If you are one of those who believe that it is a product enabler, you will find the presentation from companies who sell SOA products interesting with good alignment from products. If you believe that it is a style of architecture, from good practices, good org committment and buyin, then it really doesnt matter what products you use, does it ? Indepedent consultants should be able to go into these presentations with their own views instead of letting the vendors convince you otherwise. Thats why there will always be n camps and free-will ;)

If a vendor comes in a sell to a customer "That I have this super technology server that can monitor your processes, handle exception and change management" but the customer doesnt know how they would use all these. Wouldnt that be a white elephant ?

I think that is the biggest problem today we have in SOA - What are the concrete deliverables and how do we measure it ?

by Softwaremaker

# re: Interesting to see how the other side works@ Wednesday, July 25, 2007 3:19 PM

You will hardly find objective evaluation in the industry, people's view are biased because of economical incentive, intentionally or unintentionally. This is particularly true for technical sales.

Popularity is hardly an attribute of technical merit. The same goes for market share, share price, love or loath of particular technolgy or buzz words.

It's the compatability that wins hand down, taking language, important element of software world, some people prefer being closer to machine, they use c++ while some people prefer the ease and large availability of high level libraries, they use .NET; some people prefer the RAD of scripting, they use Ruby/Python; some people do not worry about the sometimes chaos of Java world and get things rolled out; some people prefer a very well-defined framework and feels the sense of security while others feel the constraints associated and the list goes on. Compatability determines the happiness when you work with, lanaguage or technolgoy, on a particular technolgy. If that thing makes you feel relief from incompatability, feel happier, feel more achievement, discover more truth each day you use it, then keep going ahead.

The above is from individual's perspective, turning around from the company's perspecitve, if you keep people happy doing each own's work, of course this is a two-way process, not to be inflicted with incompatible agendas, the project undertaken is bound to be done quicker and neater, and eventually please the customer too.

by blackinkbottle

# re: Interesting to see how the other side works@ Wednesday, July 25, 2007 7:26 PM

[Quote User="SoftwareMaker"]

While it remains to be seen (and proven), the reason for this is to address the single-digit market share of SUN's App Servers, Marketshare as well as shareprice. This is no known secret. Also being removed is SUN's JCP process.

[/Quote]

Don't quite understand what you mean...

No, I don't  believe SOA is a product enabler. I believe it is a style of architecture. But unless the company is going to build everything by itself, they would be looking at vendors to help them... But what does MS has to help their customers? Besides ESB, the rest of the piece is still not there...

Only MS sells technology to the customer, and it depends on individual tech sales ppl to craft how the story how it may help in the organisation. But in this training, the vendor teaches its sales and partner exactly which area to probe, what exactly to probe, which product to put in, which functionality to address certain pains, who your competitor is going to be, and how to counter them. It is never about product feature...

What are the concrete deliverables, how to measure it, the vendor already has all these thought out carefully...

by kitkai

# re: Interesting to see how the other side works@ Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:26 PM

I'm not bothered by which language is popular... I'm just amused at how inaccurate their information can be, and how self-denial they can be as well... Just today, they say Vista is their competitor to their web services registry kind of product... Of all the products Microsoft has, they choose a client operating system... Duh!!!

by kitkai

# re: Interesting to see how the other side works@ Saturday, July 28, 2007 1:23 PM

http://icelava.net/forums/1628/ShowThread.aspx

by icelava