[Web4lib] RE: vendors and usability

[Joshua Ferraro]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2005 at 02:03:52PM -0700, C.S. Durfee wrote:
> Library systems software is extremely complex.  There are a lot of
> reasons for that (some obvious, some not so obvious) which I won't go
> into here, but it is.  I do not know for sure, but I am willing to bet
> that the number of function points (a standard metric of software
> complexity) for a complete ILS is much higher than for, say, MS Word. 
> I would love to see a vendor actually provide such an analysis to
> their customers, though.
Ha! that sounds like it came directly from a TLC proposal ;-). The fact
is, library software isn't that complex compared to a word processing 
suite like MS Office or OpenOffice.org. I don't know when vendors 
started making this claim but it's simply not true.

What is true is that the marketplace for ILSes is finite (which isn't
the case for MS Office yet). So libraries can make vendors jump through
enormous loops to prove that their product is better than the competition.
On-site demonstrations, lengthy RFPs and responses, etc. 

This process drives up the price enormously ... license fees are the
other major unnecessary cost involved in ILSes.

> I do agree with the suggestion to do what you can to get the best
> software for your money.  Capitalism is a great way of encouraging the
> development of better products.  If one vendor is better than the
> others, by all means, give them your business!  And even if you are
> using the best vendor in the world, negotiate for the best price you
> can get.
I agree with you 100%.

Cheers,
-- 
Joshua Ferraro               VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS