RE: Witango-Talk: .NET vs Witango vs. Oracle

[Robert Shubert]

Robert, Phil, et al   In my opinion, and I’m not trying to discredit Witango in anyway here, I am not surprised that a Fortune 1000 company would gravitate towards a name brand. There’s a reason why the people who started Microsoft and Oracle are among the wealthiest, their companies among the biggest, and their brands among the most well known – if not most trusted – in the world. Management teams are trained in school and from experience to select known quantities with lots of resources and support. They select brands that instill confidence in their customers and their shareholders. This is the way of [very] big business, and I do not believe that Witango stands much chance going head-to-head in that kind of arena, for the sole reason that it is not Microsoft, Oracle, or a public project with 100,000 developers behind it.   The strength of Witango, and Tango before it, has been with the mid sized business, the $1 mil - $50 mil group where the product expense is insignificant, but the capabilities afforded by the software to a competent developer make applications that the business can’t live without. They don’t always understand or see the Witango component, but they understand enough to see that the application is exceeding expectations in quality, performance, functionality and cost. These are usually the companies where you can, as the developer, still interface directly with the CTO or other CxO, without the buzzwords and consultants getting in the way.   I’m sorry that your site is growing to a point where you need to consider such things, and you are working with people who are not willing or able to give Witango a chance. Phil, however, is right in saying that there are resources around the web and the world that might be able to help you. I know a good many capable developers who would be willing vouch as a backup to your services. I also know a few excellent server guys and consultants who spend 100% of their time dealing with Witango in one way or other. And finally, I know companies in that $1mil -$50mil category that wouldn’t make a dollar tomorrow if Witango disappeared today.   I too want Witango to ‘get the word out’, and attempts have been made here and there to do just that, but I’m afraid that it’s considerably easier said than done. I try to do my bit, but it’s not easy. There aren’t a great many high-traffic public sites running Witango, and the ones that are don’t really advertise the fact. Still I believe that the base of users aware of and using Witango grows each day. I also do not believe that the cost of the product weighs heavily on the decision process. There are many levels to employ (and deploy) the Witango technologies, they should fit everyone’s needs at one point or another. Discounting the product shouldn’t be necessary, and above all we need WT to maintain a viable business model for years to come.   I have never concerned myself with using products that aren’t the most known or most expensive. In fact I’ve had wonderful luck finding small-time applications with a lot of kick, created by developers who are responsive and care about their products. Phil and the WT team prove themselves over and over again with relentless efforts put into the Witango products. Myself, I wouldn’t give up the opportunity to work as close to the development team as I do. From the days of the 5.0 beta up to today I have seen a commitment from WT that I rarely see in other products. I think, and my clients think, that it’s a real plus to be able to bring a bug or situation directly back to WT and have someone (usually Phil) resolve it quickly. It’s one of my biggest selling points to my clients to know that I can directly interface to Witango.   In the end, however, you’re always going to win some and loose some. The same situations occur with other lesser understood technologies, WebObjects and Cold Fusion. Or the ever fun argument between the need to support Windows servers vs. Linux servers. And someplace I’m sure there’s a guy that could kick our collective arses in Perl. Ok it’s late. But still, I think you should fight the fight and see where it takes you. You can’t make everyone happy, that’s why we have choice. So if this one goes .NET hopefully the next one will go Witango.   Oh one more point. You did talk about the lack of development tools, utilities and general integration with other products. While true to a point that there are weaknesses in this area, it really takes developers like us, who care about the product, to create those tools and utilities, and to push other developers to make their products compatible. Witango has always been a huge proponent of standards and I’ve found that external software which makes use of those same standards plays very well with Witango. Perhaps you are feeling more put-out then usual about this turn of events, but I think we all know that Witango isn’t the biggest product in the field but at the same time we are all quite proud of what Witango is.   Best,   Robert   From: Robert Garcia [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 11:30 PM To: witango-talk@witango.com Subject: Re: Witango-Talk: .NET vs Witango vs. Oracle     On May 19, 2005, at 7:32 PM, Phil Wade wrote:   "Because no one has heard of it" is such a bizzare argument. Yes people use it all the time but in my experience it is not the reason for making a decision. It is just a convenient argument that is hard to rebuke so you need to have a strategy ready for when it comes up.   Every new client anyone gets has not heard of them until they are introduced to them for the first time by somebody, but their intelligence and reasoning power manages to kick in and they get past it. You need to sell your own Company to get the work, so why is the software tools you use any different. Sell it as you would your own skills. The IT industry has matured a lot since the days of FUD and hype. Start making the argument about deliverables, cost of delivery, cost of ownership, meeting deadlines, risk management, code consistency, etc and stop the argument being about technology.     Your preaching to the choir. I agree, and I think for the most part, their argument is not valid, but they do have valid concerns.   1. If BigHead falls of the map, where do they find other witango developers. I have had several clients look for others as a back up, or on occasion not happy with me. And they instantly see how much fewer resources and developers are available with witango experience. Developers for other languages are a dime a dozen. And there is an endless stream of people/designers/developers that will counsel them against witango, cuz it is not widely used.   2. The people I deal with, have to put up with the same thing when they go to more upper management or board, and they have to answer it is written in Witango. Everyone is an "expert" these days. And the middle management guy I have sold, has to get the same grief from his management. In my experience, they SPECIFICALLY ask the language(s) being used, and want to feel warm and fuzzy about it for compatibility, and sellability of their investment.   Make it about how you will perform the task. If they want the "name brand technology" or Standards based solution then you can offer them J2EE. The Witango Java Framework and compiler were developed for this reason. A few clicks and the application can be deployed to a J2EE server. You can develop with the Dev Studio and deploy to JBoss, BEA, WebSphere, SUN, etc. If a company has heard of .Net then they have definitely heard of J2EE.   The Witango Java Framework and compiler were developed for this reason. Tell them that it is a J2EE application.   J2EE is not a valid argument to them. Even though Witango will compile to J2EE, it still requires a completely proprietary framework, and licensing. IMHO, might as well deploy on Witango server, not worry about the extra headache of Java compiling.   The arguments you have given have worked very successfully with smaller clients. But these Fortune 1000 types are different, and these arguments don't work as well. They want to know that they have a lot of options with the app server they choose, to move to other developers if necessary. To easily move to inhouse development. Even though I could tell them that Witango is extremely easy to train on, they just know that when they go to their normal pool of resources, they see little to zero info re: witango, and a ton on the others.   Its not even about money, which is obvious when they want to rewrite in .NET, and the witango system has performed excellently, and has not gone down even once over this whole time.   In the scheme of things the cost of Witango is not the issue. As a percentage of the overall project costs it is usually in low single digit percentage points. In a $60K project Witango is less than 5% of the cost but is probably responsible for a 30-50% cost saving in the development of the application.   You are correct, it is not the issue to this company. That is not my point, my point is to get witango in the hands of more and more budding developers, so there are more resources and a pool of developers for the system. Why are most developers choosing PHP and JSP and even sometimes webobjects instead. It is not because it is better, it is because they don't know about it in the first place, or they can't afford it.   <not speaking on behalf of witango> At the end of the day if a company is willing to pay you 30-50% more to develop a site in .Net, smile, be courteous, polite and say thank you for the extra revenue as no amount of marketing, brand name awareness or reduction in price is going to help them improve their decision making process. ; ) </not speaking on behalf of witango>   I hear you. And I am not worried about my future, these people are more interested in me, than the language. But I would love to see this not be an issue some day. It just doesn't happen with clients, it happens with vendors and stuff also. Some examples:   I have had times when I found a bug in an ODBC driver, or a COM object or something, and I report to the company via tech support. I have done my homework, and I know where the problem is, but when they ask how I am using it, I try not to say witango, if I do, they have almost always said, "What is that?" and then proceed to say they don't support, or it goes to the bottom of the list. If the bug was with PHP or .NET, I get a much better response. This has happened many times over the years.   Available tools: because witango is not known, available third party tools are usually not tested with witango, and examples integration help is not provided. Here is a recent example:   I had to build an app that allowed inline editing of text for non technical users. I wanted them to be able to add simple HTML formatting without HTML. I found this outstanding DHTML tool called editlet. (http://www.editlet.com/) It provides an inline HTML editor that is completely configurable, so that you can have users create and edit html, with custom constraints. The code includes a spell checker, image manager, and sample code to integrate with any app server. JSP, ASP, .NET, ColdFusion, and PHP, but no witango. Well, I went through their ASP examples, and rewrote what I needed in Witango, a few extra hours of work. This is not an isolated example. Just look at what tools/components are available for witango, and what is available for others.   I think all of these issues go into a developer's choice for the language they choose. Not to mention the jobs that are available for developers to jump on.   I am not making a case for others. I want Witango to thrive. I want my investment in witango to retain its value.   Another example, I use another tool frequently, REALBasic. In the beginning, it was much like witango. Very small and not heard of. But they have done a good job of marketing to new developers, and they have made a dent. For example, they offered free licenses to there standard edition for windows to licensed users of Visual Basic. They got the word out and got a huge response. It is true that there are many more samples and resources on the net for VB, but RB has grown in to a community where there are a good amount of components/resources available for new developers.   I haven't even been able to login to the developer.witango.com site like I used to since the change. And when I ask to mail my login, it just give me a white page with a header and footer and no email to me, but that is another issue.   ________________________________________________________________________ TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf ________________________________________________________________________ TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf