Last week I was talking to a vendor representative for a service management tool.  The meeting went pretty well but there was one part that I just had to bite my tongue on because my “matter of fact” personality would have been harsh.  The rep was discussing how the new version of the tool (which isn’t out yet) would automatically search user names while they were being typed.  Great.  Fantastic.  I don’t think he knew that Service-Now already has this feature.  In fact, even Open Ticket Request System, a free and open-source product, already has this feature.  I’m sure the rep was just pointing out an improvement that was being made and as a software company, I applaud them for making improvements.  But the truth of the matter is they’re behind and saying a feature is “coming out” when others already have it just means they’re playing catch-up and it really makes me feel a little disheartened.  This isn’t to say that the particular vendor has bad software, in fact it’s been around for a while and overall I would say it’s pretty solid.  At that particular moment I wasn’t “wowed” by something that should have been included in the current release.  Now, I know I’m generally difficult to “wow” and quite honestly, I have had almost no emotional responses to several exciting events in my life, but this interaction really adds to my opinion that most IT Service Management vendors are behind (see http://www.itilandme.com/?p=197).

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Started working in IT in 1999 as a support desk analyst as a way to help pay for food during college. Studied Electrical Engineering for two years before realizing biochemistry was more fun than differential equations, and so ultimately graduated with a Biology degree in 2006. Having (reluctantly) failed at getting accepted into dental school, embraced working in IT and has gone broke becoming an ITIL Expert. Likes to jog, sing camp songs, quote Mel Brooks movie lines and make dumb jokes and loves working for an Israeli tech company where December 25th is a regular work day.