Infoworld Gets BOSSie on Hyperic (Or is it the Other Way Around?)

What a great name for an award… punchy, accurate acronym along with an irresistible pun! We found out this morning that Hyperic was listed among the 4 ‘finalists’ of the award. Despite Infoworld’s decision not to publish a winner until they finish deeper reviews of each product, we’re eager to see the results. In the meantime, I can’t resist commenting on the lead point of the article. Namely, the fact that the press and analyst community continues to ring the “Us vs. the Big 4″ bell whenever the topic of IT Management comes up. The reason for this is understandable… the David vs. Goliath setup is hard to resist in a $9B marketplace dominated by 4 entrenched players. What’s missing in this analysis, and that of most people who look at the management space, is the fact that the reason why this space is interesting is because the problem itself changes constantly and habitually refuses to conform to a single standard (it’s been attempted more times than I can count).

Think about it. IT Management (even just plain old monitoring) is a moving target of changing technologies, standards, and methods. Further, the method and pace at which these technologies get deployed is also constantly evolving and different at every company or scenario. Framing new solutions like those profiled in the BOSSie writeup strictly from the standpoint of whether they prove worthy contenders to this battle royale with the Big 4 is insufficient. The real measure should be how well each product solves the customer’s pain. This pain, by the way, might not be described in ITIL terms, or latched to SNMP MIBs. Folk’s who use Hyperic to manage their data centers want products which anticipate problems, help answer questions, and above all else, don’t get in the way.

I’m eager to see Hyperic (and any other product in our category), be reviewed from that standpoint.

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