vendors

When it comes to ITSM products (whether software or consulting or content or training) I'm reminded of the old postcard vendors of Cairo during WWII, or the "Rolex" sellers of New York, or the hash-or-houseboat sellers of Srinigar, or the tart-touts of Bangkok - they're everywhere, on every corner. As a high-profile blogger, I get this constant stream of "hey buddy/mister/falang, wanna buy an ITSM?". In the past when ITSM vendors asked I've politely looked (or found excuses) because I know how your product is like your baby: you are immensely proud and nobody dares tell you it is ugly. Actually most products are like most babies: they aren't ugly, they just look like every other one (my dad reckoned all babies look like Winston Churchill). But from now on I'm going to adopt a simpler answer: when I need something, I may look at your offering. Right now I don't, so I won't, thanks anyway.

We go round this question every week on LinkedIn. My answer is getting pretty well honed.

It is not too late to sign up for Pink Elephant's 14th Annual ITSM Conference in Las Vegas next month. I'll see you there. If you come along, we'll be introducing an entirely new feature: an Exhibit Hall Optimizer. I have created the EHOBOK, the Exhibit Hall Optimizer Body Of Knowledge, as a tool for you to extract maximum value from the vendor exhibits, usually a dead zone for some of us at a conference. Check it out on the Conference blog and discover important principles such as

Automate to make systems more reliable. Automate to make them more effective. Even automate to make them more efficient. But don't automate to eliminate people, at least not if the system is mission critical. You need even more highly trained, professionally-alert staff, to step in when it all goes pear-shaped. And it will.

The next time you feel even the faintest twinge of believing that Microsoft are on your side, ask them why they would be wanting to patent the concept of CMDB. To advance ITSM? To create a fair and open market? To increase healthy competition? Maybe Goooogle are exhibiting a few signs of evil but Microsoft hold the franchise.

Here's a blogger taking the vendors firmly by the ear and twisting. My Hero! I am not worthy! etc etc

Conventional wisdom would assume that in a challenging economy, strong relationships would be a key success factor to retaining business and mitigating loss of revenue. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case for many companies, including vendors in enterprise software.

News continues to leak about an ITIL Software Endorsement Scheme endorsed by OGC, administered by APMG, and created and assessed by a small organisation SMCG. Without any public discussion at all, a "standard" for ITIL software products is about to be dropped on the unsuspecting ITIL public.

We recently discussed how too many software vendors stretch the facts when claiming ITIL support. Giving them much benefit of the doubt, we thought they might be confused. if so, here is ITIL101 for software vendors to help straighten them out.

Too many software vendors stretch the facts when claiming ITIL support in their products. Perhaps they misunderstand ITIL.

[Updated May 2009] The CMDB Federation standards initiative must be the most over-hyped vendor marketing smokescreen ever. Whenever anyone raises the bogeyman of proprietary CMDBs, the vendors wheel this one out as the future promise of interoperability. It is pure vendor double-talk. It solves little and is taking forever to appear anyway. It solves little because the standard defines only how management tools can pass data between them- nothiong about what they pass. I bet the much-trumpeted demos seen so far involved data massaging and informal backroom agreements beyond that dictated by the standard in order to get it all to work. I am highly skeptical (surpise!) about the likelihood that this standard would enable or even faciltiate anything useful in a real-world implementation.