The recent experience of thousands of Americans has shown elected authorities can`t be relied upon to do what`s best in terms of disaster planning. Hurricane Katrina literally blew that myth away.
If the promises of the US government made in the wake of the World Trade Centre twin tower disaster to be better prepared were so empty, would it be wise to trust the promises of software vendors that promise to deliver what`s best for customers?
Unlike elected authorities, software vendors have no contractual obligation to do what is best for anyone except shareholders. Doing what`s best for shareholders does not necessarily mean doing what`s best for customers.
Given this reality, would anyone in their right mind believe any promises vendors make?
In recent weeks, at least two major software vendors have promised customers, partners and independent software vendors to make security, usability, operability and business alignment top priorities.
Can we really believe them?
Considering the competitiveness of the market, it is likely that these statements calculated to reassure existing customers and attract new ones, are indeed true or contain a fair measure of the truth. However, such statements and claims lead to a far more troubling question.
Past lies, future promises
While it`s good that vendors are making these kinds of commitments, does this mean they were not really committed to these things before?
Warwick Ashford, portals managing editor
While it`s good that vendors are making these kinds of commitments, does this mean they were not really committed to these things before?
Sitting in darkened convention halls recently listening to top executives making statements that were more sales-oriented than about technology, this concern began to gain momentum.
It makes sense that software should be usable, operable, business-aligned and secure, but surely that`s what it should have been all along? Isn`t that what most customers, partners and ISVs would have assumed would have been the objective of all new software releases?
Why would business applications ever not be aligned with business processes? Why would operating systems ever be difficult to use or not interoperable?
Security concerns
Security is the one that bothers me the most. To my mind, saying the latest version of some software has been designed to be secure by default implies that its predecessors were not.
Perhaps only vendors riding the crest of the multimillion-dollar software industry would have the chutzpah to attempt to inspire confidence and win support by making statements that are tantamount to confessions that customers were being short-changed in the past.
The competitiveness of the market, increased business demands on IT, and the increasingly sophisticated skills of hackers chasing profits from selling data may have finally forced software vendors to get real about how they allocate research and development budgets now and in the future, but are we expected just to forget the past?
Like the hurricane victims in the US, it seems like it is time to get real about where vendors` true obligations lie and not take their promises too seriously.
On the other hand, this newfound commitment and 'honesty` is a sure sign there has been a shift of power to the consumer. Now it is up to consumers at every level to make needs known and not to accept second best.
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