Witango is what it is. I am in the same boat as David - the product does all I need it to do and has for many years. If there wasn't another release of any kind it wouldn't cause trouble for me.
As some of you know, I had the responsibility of supporting Tango for a few years and take it from me: it's a tough job. Witango is in the middle of a solution. People tend to approach support issues as "prove it isn't Witango" which is very expensive. Witango's previous owners were unable to provide cost effective support. A simple user error could easily cost more than the annual support cost. And, to be frank - how much money do you think With takes in from licenses and support? This is a small community. Could we all together support a full time developer and customer support rep? What do you think it costs to have dozens of environments available for 3 operating systems and umpteen databases on hand to reproduce issues? Most importantly to me, a customer buys a solution. If it works and is attractive to the customer, what does it matter that the product is obscure? Especially now that we can deploy for Java. -----Original Message----- From: Scott Cadillac [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 8:03 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Witango-Talk: Witango Customer Support An astute observation David, I like it. Of course none of us can (or are trying to) speak for Phil, who by the way graciously lets us rant and rave about him on "his" email list server. But if you couple David's assessment with a previous post of mine, I think some things come into perspective. Following is some long excerpts from an even longer post, so you don't have to read all my personal dribble (...well you still get a little, dribble that is...). http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg14400.html "...Fri, 20 May 2005..." "...Every tool has a place, including Witango. But more on that further down. What's all this hubbub about losing face and blank stares? And who do we have to blame for Witango not conquering the world? ...only ourselves. What else do you expect after Pervasive (a multi-million dollar company serving a multi-billion dollar market) shelved their own product line? I, just like all of you reading this, decided to keep forging ahead anyway, after that bomb dropped. We were positive and hopeful (some bitter) that something new would come out of it all...." "...What about now, what about our reality? We have a great web-development tool, but what is missing from this picture? ~~~~ It's defined place in the market? It's perception and position? Yes? Guess what? We're blind! It already has a position in the market, as a solid middleware product - it always has been. Tango was born when middleware was everything in web-development, and it had a great ride. The problem is, web-development has evolved to now encompasses middleware solutions - and "Enterprise" solutions. Like it or not, the "Enterprise" buzzword is reality. And "Enterprise" is the root of Robert's anxiety (and others I'm sure). So what's the difference between Middleware and Enterprise? ~~~ Middleware, is just glue - that helps to bind different applications together to make one solution. Middleware allows end-users to interact with a database via a browser, or move data from one system to another system. It can be wonderful glue, but still just glue none-the-less. ~~~ Enterprise, is a platform - a total solution environment that provides end-to-end working, integrated components to deliver results. Enterprise components are typically all written using the same language or standards. It's about conformity. Another way to read Enterprise is portability of code (a.k.a. business logic), and portability reads as savings and return on investments. Where as, code from a Middleware product isn't as portable to other components. Examples of Middleware for the web world are ColdFusion, PHP, Perl, Witango and so on. There are only two examples of Enterprise: Java and .NET What do the Fortune 5000 companies (or likewise aspiring companies) want? Enterprise - end of story. Occasionally those Fortune companies may want a quick fix to a simple problem, so sometimes they employ a middleware solution - but don't kid yourself, Enterprise is their primary objective. **** And don't kid yourself either - Phil knows all this too, why else would he build, support and offer a Java compiler for Witango? Witango can be Enterprise too, but only with the Java compiler - end of story. Anything short of the Witango Java route is simply not a contender for your Enterprise minded customers - so get over it!! Don't you see now why Pervasive dropped Tango? Pervasive had to be an Enterprise provider, and all they had was a middleware solution in their pocket. To pull that card out would have been embarrassing for them, so they decided it was better to not do web stuff at all in the Enterprise arena, then to "pretend" they could...." Scott, ________________________________________________________________________ TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf ________________________________________________________________________ TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf
