June 2004
What if we made the following announcements:
We are going to repackage VB.NET standard (cost is $100), limit most of it's functionality, not give you the source code to the little bit of content that we do develop (so you have to pay us for every installation and keep relying on us for years), and then charge you thousands of dollars per computer per year?
Want a web server? Great (for us). Instead of you buying a standard Microsoft operating system (like Windows 2000 or XP professional) with Internet Information Server (IIS / now ASP.NET) -- we'll charge you $20,000 like some well known SCADA and DCS companies are doing. (Pssst -- several companies sell web servers for only $200).
Want a SCADA database? Great again (for us). Instead of you using Access, CSV, text files, or ADO.NET for free, or buying a standard Microsoft SQL Server Database -- we'll charge you $20,000 like some well known SCADA and DCS companies are doing.
Want a complete automation platform? Even better (for us). Instead of you using Microsoft's .NET framework for free -- we'll charge you another $20,000 like some well known SCADA and DCS companies are doing.
Hopefully you would think we were crazy! But that is exactly what other SCADA, automation and DCS vendors are doing.
Have you noticed how they say you can use VB scripting, VBA, or create your own VB add-ins? They are recreating Visual Basic / C# -- while limiting what you can do so that you have to buy more software from them!
We saw that a major SCADA vendor is now announcing a plant wide architecture. WOW!
Funny how it sounds just like .NET that you get for free with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
How can they design one architecture that fits everyone's business and requirements?
The fact is, they just repackaged the same old garbage, added .NET support and now they've got the greatest thing?!? They are churning and burning, part two.
Ten years ago, seven years ago, maybe even five years ago, these SCADA packages were the best solutions. But technology rapidly changes every three years. Every 7 to 10 years, quantum leaps in technology are achieved. Companies aren't running their businesses anything like they were 50 years ago, why use the same software that was a good idea ten years ago?
Some vendors that we work with are puzzled that we don't try to achieve a "hypnotic" type of control over our customers. Simple fact is, if you spend that time focusing on customer service and technical expertise -- you don't need to "control the customer". We don't want to force a customer to use us if they don't want to. We would rather both of us move on. This is very common when upper management changes and the new management brings in all the people that they have been doing business with.
If a customer does not want to understand what we do or how we do it or what makes us different from the other integrators out there -- how are we going to have successful projects with that customer? Our goal is to have successful projects. If we can't have successful projects with a customer -- it is time to move on.
We apologize for the shameless plug for our VB.NET and C# training but some automation users use this argument that they don't know how to use VB.NET or C#. They can go get VB.NET or C# training from us or any other training class and still save money their first year. For example, a typical SCADA system with five development stations, ten viewing stations, a web server, plant architecture, and database could easily be over $100,000 in software before you start developing any software.
Our three week training for five programmers is $15,000, five major development packages (Visual Studio .NET professional) at $1,000 each, ten minor development (instead of run-time) packages (either VB.NET or C# standard) at $100 each and you are looking at only $21,000 before you start developing any software.
You can save $79,000 on your first project.
SCADA vendors claim their software does not require any programming?!? Let's see them try to develop any application with moderate complexity without programming. Fact is, their software is so limited that it can require 50 pages of writing code for something you can do in half of a page using VB.NET or C#. So they'll tell you that you can include VB / C code with their software. So why pay thousands of $ for their software in the first place?
It is amazing to us why people continue to buy the stuff?
We try to offer a fair and balanced opinion on every page of our website. We would appreciate more information from other users to express their opinions which we will then incorporate. If you have questions or comments please post them on our message board (see button in left hand column) so that others can read and benefit.
