[Ietf-calsify] Re: What's wrong with more radical simplification?

[Dave Thewlis]

I would like to support Tim's observations about interoperability and 
its effect.  So often the proprietary vs open/interoperable debate, 
focused on market share, looks like obsessing on the comparative slice 
percentage of a fixed-diameter pie, as opposed to a perhaps narrower 
wedge of a much larger pie. 

We are in a world where nobody has just one product for anything due to 
mergers and acquisition, or simply multiple fiefdoms and departments.  
To say nothing of non-enterprise purposes such as event publication, 
personal calendars, etc.

What gets overlooked in the proprietary discussions about getting an 
enterprise to convert everyone to the same product, thus avoiding 
interoperability concerns, is the freeze effect on the customer of a 
conversion - any conversion.  Even if the organization sees it through, 
at the end they spend a bundle, lose months of otherwise productive 
time, and at best wind up where they started.  If the money and other 
resources could be put towards growth, better service, or anything 
useful to the bottom line, the pie can grow and so do all the individual 
pieces.

And thanks for the reference to the Consortium, TIm.  Naturally I agree 
with your recommendation.

Dave Thewlis, Executive Director
The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium

Tim Hare wrote:

> I've got to agree with Cameron on this one - get some products out the 
> door which interoperate at some level we can use! Speaking as an end 
> user of a couple of different products, and knowing how my work 
> organization works, I've got to say this to the vendors present:
>
>
> Interoperability is NOT going to cost you market share, it may drive 
> sales up.
>
>
> Yes, I know that making things standards-compliant means an 
> organization can pull the plug on your stuff and replace it with a 
> competitor's stuff. But that's going to happen either because of 
> price, which is some organizations trumps technology every time; 
> because of features other than interoperability, like (for a really 
> bad example) animated alarm cartoons; or because of crappy code that 
> breaks all the time. It's not going to happen because your software 
> plays nice with others. Developers - this of course isn't really aimed 
> at you but at those who make decisions about where your resources are 
> applied.
>
> And if I could write to all of the marketing folks in your companies: 
> join the Calendaring & Scheduling Consortium and help get this done. 
> Making people's calendar lives nicer would be a great part of the 
> "marketing conversation" we hear about so much these days. In fact, if 
> any of you want to send me e-mail addresses for decision-makers, I 
> will try to send them a reasoned plea about this.  I'm not a 
> Consortium member yet myself (I'm saving my box tops up) but I believe 
> in this enough to work on and think about this in my personal time 
> anyway.
>