August 2001, Vol. 12, No. 8

Software demonstrations, when you do enough of them, can become mind-numbing.

This year at NEXPO, following the lead of the industry, we at The Cole Papers were in something of an austerity mode. While we had a sufficient number of people covering the event, there was no fat.

And, as such, it fell to the newsletter’s editor and publisher to do some extra work this year.

I went to some demos.

Now, I didn't see as many things as Correspondents Jason Zappe, George Powell or Steven E. Brier, but I saw a lot of stuff.

And as such, I have this revelation-slash-impression: It’s all the same.

That is to say: Through the haze of memory from all those demonstrations, I believe that all the major suppliers meet their competitors, feature for feature, in the major product categories.

A sweeping statement, for sure, so let’s qualify it. Yes, I will admit that here and there you will find differentiation. But by and large, if you're out there seeking an advertising order entry system or an editorial system, you are going to find that they offer pretty much the same things.

Now, this is both bad and good. It is good because pretty much all the suppliers meet pretty much all our needs. It is bad, because there is an awful lot of imitation.

As always, this space attempts to keep away from knocking one supplier over another, but suffice it to say, when Supplier A says it will support Feature One, it won't be long before Suppliers B through Z will also say they support Feature One. Now, whether they actually do support Feature One is neither here nor there -- they say they will.

I actually had a supplier tell me that though it supported Feature One, it wasn't going to demonstrate it at NEXPO because to do so would be "too confusing." I was sufficiently addled at that point that I forgot to ask who would be confused, but you get the idea. Yes, we support Feature One, we just aren't going to show it to you right now.

Luckily for us -- you, the consumer and me, the consumer advocate -- while Feature One removes one criterion for comparison of suppliers, the ability to Tell The Truth adds a new criterion for comparison.

Inside, the correspondent squad takes another run at the suppliers at NEXPO 2001, which was held June 15-19 in New Orleans. Brier gives us a look at Advanced Technical Solutions Inc., Geac Publishing Systems and MerlinOne Inc., while Powell examines Advanced Publishing Technology, Harris Publishing Systems Corp. and its subsidiary, Baseview Products Inc. Newly minted staffer Zappe reviews the offerings of CCI Europe and Mactive Inc.

And to retain tradition, we still have some stuff that we're saving for September (like Christmas, we prefer to make NEXPO last).

So while the suppliers may be aping one another -- making the job of picking the right one appear more difficult -- this feature parity in fact brings us back to what I've been saying for more than a decade: You pick your supplier based on your personal chemistry with it.

Do your companies share the same values? Are the supplier’s people the kind of people you want to spend the next five years (or decade) dealing with? If they're big and you're small (or you're big and they're small), how’s that going to work? Do they want your business?

All these questions then become primary, and while they're hard to quantify, they do show more real differences than feature comparisons.

And if I'm wrong, then I'll be a monkey’s uncle.

-- David M. Cole, dmc@colepapers.net