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Re: Any WWDC News
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Re: Any WWDC News


  • Subject: Re: Any WWDC News
  • From: Georg Tuparev <email@hidden>
  • Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 09:17:00 +0200

On Jul 5, 2004, at 5:47 AM, Trae Nickelson wrote:

I am jealous! I think you are fortunate to find yourself in a more receptive market than myself and some other posters. You and others outside of the U.S. may be WebObjects best hope. Unfortunately, only 1 out of every 10 or so clients of mine have shown no interest in the tools used to build their system. In fact, the majority of the time, at some point usually later in the process, they ask specifically and it becomes a large part of their decision making process. I usually do not mention WebObjects at all, but describe a Java-based solution with a variety of deployment options (describing WebObjects without mentioning the name). Sometimes, it works, sometimes it doesn't. But my main point is, mentioning WebObjects by name is NEVER an advantage. You're okay with this?

No, I am definitely not OK! When you go to a new client, you talk about their problem, and this is almost never a technology. Typical problems I encounter often are: too expensive delivery of invoices and statements, bad and delayed financial reporting, long payment collection time, unhappy customers... Take the last one - you can fix it with better software, but you can also fix it with a bottle of champagne for the New Year's Ave. Often the later is better choice and it is always easier to measure the response. We are honest enough to say this to our clients. We also turn down projects because we feel the client will have no benefit. Here another story - I was invited to talk to a prospective client - they already made their mind to invest heavily on a new system, but it was clear to me this will never pay the investment. The only thing they really needed was automatically to collect and upload few MBs of data into their accounting system. I told them this, and I wrote for them a simple Ruby script (2h of work) for free to make the uploading. We did not made any money there, but I am sure either they, or someone they recommended us to will knock on our door sooner or later.


The important point is: WO is our problem. But we have to solve our client's problems. And 95% of the time this has absolutely nothing to do with technology! We are not payed to sell them WO, but to fix their pains - you call a doctor because you are ill, not because you would like to have an aspirin!

All this talk gets absurd! In what times are you living? Software industry is out of it's infancy. This means that religious and other arguments are thing of the past. For the last 3 years or so I was not asked a single time what tools & systems we use to deliver our products. Our clients include some big shots from the banking industry, online shops, telecom, etc. We even do credit card billing & accounting for one of the major players here in the Netherlands. People ask how fast we can deliver, how much it will cost, how easy is to admin a Xserve - this sort of things.

I wish you were right about the religious aspects of the software industry being a thing of the past. WebObjects, and the rest of us, would be a lot better off. I don't mean to bash religion, but sometimes the choices companies make in selecting software solutions do seem as emotional (non-logical) as religious choices. If the mid-level IT Manager belongs to the church of Microsoft, or the church of IBM, or Sun and J2EE, you will never be able to sneak WebObjects in there. With the more agnostic, open, and logical IT Manager, you have a much better shot. But where I'm living, that's a rare bird.

I AM right! When I go to a banking or telecom client I do not speak with the cleaning lady - I am sure she is religious about the detergents they use. I also do not speak to the IT-Manager - she is also am member of the Seattle church. I speak to the gold owner - the one who runs the company and feels all the pain too. And after our small talk, he calls the IT manager and tells her she either must change her believe system or start looking for another employer. BTW, this is my experience not only from my current company, but also from my previous one, and from the time when I was working for a US consulting company (so the argument that here on Mars we have more open-minded IT managers really does not count). This was true 8 years ago, this was true in the boom high days, and this is true now.


Also I do not believe in "successful" marketing! Everyone speaks about XP (eXtreme Programming) as being superior to waterfall methodologies. The XP books sell like mad. But I still have to find a large software house that really does XP ... and not to speak for our religious IT manager. (Side observation: there are more XP adopters among WO/Cocoa community then the average in the market). So I believe that if Apple puts more money on marketing, these will be just more wasted money... but this is another subject for another mailing list.

Blasphemy #1: I am happy so few people use WO. Otherwise we would never have the competitive advantage we enjoy now.
Blasphemy #2: It is easier to find talented WO developer then a talented J2EE developer (or have you ever tried to choose among the 3785 CVs you will receive if you make J2EE opening announcement ;-)


I have a prediction... Within the next 2 or 3 years, some other solution, outside of Apple will finally emerge that will eclipse WebObjects. You, me, and every other non-religious technologist will gladly move on and not look back in WebObjects' direction. Then - a year or so after that - Apple will pull their heads out of their butts, realize the opportunity they squandered, and futilely try to sell us on WebObjects again. Too little, too late.

Wrong!
1. After 3 years EOF (or its successor) will be still be #1. To build something like this you need a decade - not a year. I know the way NeXT and later Apple walked through - from DBKit to EOF1, EOF2... To walk this way one needs time, and the NeXT team... I am not so sure if I would be able to say the same for the WO part... But now we have CoreData ... fuzzy is the future - but bright.
2. We are not going to abandon 100k+ lines of reusable home grown frameworks just because there is a new gadget. I will most certainly do play with new technologies as I always do.



Georg Tuparev Tuparev Technologies Klipper 13 1186 VR Amstelveen The Netherlands Mobile: +31-6-55798196 _______________________________________________ webobjects-dev mailing list | email@hidden Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/webobjects-dev Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.


  • Follow-Ups:
    • Re: Any WWDC News
      • From: Trae Nickelson <email@hidden>
References: 
 >Re: Any WWDC News (From: Georg Tuparev <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Any WWDC News (From: Trae Nickelson <email@hidden>)

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