Let's be careful we're lobbing grenades at the right enemy. As I see things the conflict here isn't choosing vendor supplied solutions vs. open source, the problem is the vendor doing a poor job of making something that is usable and truly useful.
There is a time and place for both vendor supplied and open source solutions. As Jerry has stated some customers prefer to have one vendor for everything. For other customers, having one vendor for everything is a level of captive dependence they would rather avoid. One size certainly does not fit all. But all that aside, vendors need to put more attention into their products to make them useful and usable rather than simply another tick on a marketing checklist. Having XML support or whatever doesn't mean jack squat if it's so convoluted and unstable and poorly documented so as to be about worthless without heroics. This is where vendors could learn a great deal from the open source movement; open source technologies, though having no clear "vendor" or "support" often do a much better job of making things that are useful, usable, AND understandable. Once vendors return to a commitment to excellence over a commitment to marketing things may change. Until then, as solution providers the best we can do is keep all of our options open and when there are no options, to create new ones. -Kevin http://www.PrecisOnline.com _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
