The ITIL portal was originally going to be free
Readers may have missed the comment a while ago that the ITIL portal was originally going to be "available to the ITSM community at no cost".
We heard about it in the Chief Architect's presentations about the future of ITIL V3. And way back in an "ITIL Refresh" newsletter it told us
Proposed ITIL Portal
In the coming months TSO proposes to offer a new unique and dynamic web resource ideal for organisations seeking to learn about, adopt and access ITIL V3... The portal will not only deliver you instant access to the core publications, but also work as an international information centre offering support, guidance and implementation tools at different levels. We plan to offer ITIL thought leadership via horizon-scanning white papers, case studies of adoption, a mentoring and personal development section - all aimed at supporting you.
This portal is aimed at meeting the community’s needs
Well if the community needs to be stung for thousands of pounds per annum just to access the official clearing house of ITIL ideas, then I guess TSO's ITIL Live is meeting our needs. I have no idea if it is meeting any other needs or not because I've not met anyone whose boss is silly enough to sign off the subscription. If you are one of the fortunate few please tell us of your experiences with ITIL Live. What is behind the green door?
I'd also welcome some insight into how TSO managed to pull such a swifty, morphing the fine original idea into the grossest cash grab we've seen around ITIL yet.
Made in New Zealand 
Comments
Where did the promised ITIL V3 Service Model go? I think we know
It has been suggested to me that the free ITIL V3 portal function promised to us so long ago is provided by the Best Practice site or the Official Site, not TSO's ITIL Live site.
Anybody who was party to the early descriptions of the portal knows those sites do not meet the expectation set. If we read the paper cited above, we see that
Sounds like the same ITIL Live as sold by TSO to me.
It is true that the Best Practice site and the Knowledge Centre do get the occasional white paper. Not a template or other value-add product in sight though, nor any interactivity or Web 2.0 user involvement. Neither of them is the mythical ITIL Live.
The really telling fact though is lurking in the front of every ITIL V3 core book. I bet you never paid much attention to the List of figures before. Go look now. You will see
Well, that link doesn't provide any trace of The ITIL Service Management Practices Integrated Service Model. The Best Practice site only provides promises of it. But it does sound remarkably like the interactive model that TSO charge all that money to see at ITIL Live.
It is hard not to conclude that the current commercial ITIL Live site for which OGC holds no copyrights is a resource that was promised as free and is clearly intended by the ITIL books to be on OGC's site at www.best-management-practice.com
comment moved
ooops do not adjust your set. comment moved - see below
(I was trying to revive an old unpublished comment if you must know and Drupal doesn't quite work right when you try to get it back to the top of the Recent Comments stack)