Jon On Tech

Now, if someone offers me a joke
I just say no thanks.
I try to tell it like it is
And keep away from pranks.
- GOIN’ TO ACAPULCO

More like this please. As much as I enjoyed the CMS Vendor Meme, I have to admit that the results are fairly meaningless. Most of the answers were extremely corporate and towed the party line. So I was overjoyed to see Adrian Mateljan post his view on the Open Text response to the meme. If you are a developer and don’t know what this is about, or haven’t seen the response from your CMS vendor, the summary and all the responses are here.

Score one for the good guys

In a very honest response, he calls major bullshit on two of the answers, and questions quite a few more. He spots some cunning marketing-speak that I missed completely first time round. Open Text gave themselves 40/45 (actually, I marked their answers, but anyway). Adrian gives them a more believable 34/45. Please, developers, get in the ring.

His thoughts on Question 4:

4. Eval versions of the latest edition(s) of our software are always available for download from the company website.
Open Text’s Response: Yes, all our software is always available for download to our customers. The same is true for early beta version to those customers and partners that participate in beta programs.
Open Text’s Score: 3
Adrian’s Response: Although this is true, I don’t think it answers the spirit of the question – which is that this software should be available to non customers to evaluate – which as far as I am aware, it definately isn’t. In my experience, the whole procurement process of Management Server is very tightly controlled by Open Text and its sales team and is in no way “open” *until* you have signed on.
Adrian Score: 1

For more like this, read his full post. If you disagree with the responses from the vendor you know and love, follow Adrian’s lead and have your say. I suspect the majority of the responses have holes in them. I might even be tempted to break rank and do a few myself.

And Mr Google, if you’re watching, have one of these: 9c56d0fcf93175d70e1c9b9d188167cf

UPDATE: List of the developer responses so far is:

• May 12, 2009: Open Text – Adrian Mateljan
• May 13, 2009: Interwoven – Darren Ferguson