31 May 2006

Server Based Computing reviews. Funeral or Wedding?

Personally, I find many reviews boring. They read more like an obituary than a wedding announcement. There is a listing of the product features (accomplishments), surviving relatives (vendors, channel partners), time and date for the funeral (visit us in Booth XX, East Upper Mezzanine, Bldg. 5 , convention of the month), and where to send flowers (buy NOW on-line).

Reviews should be about new products, new services, new gadgets. A new beginning, just like a wedding. The evaluation format will start with the SBC vendors target market (invited guest list). The product features (dowry) and contact information (wedding registry). I will then ad my commentary regarding the evaluation package (The Invitation). You then decide if you are a member of the guest list and request your own invitation, or if not, just choose to crash the wedding and read the rest of the evaluation review (account of the wedding hosted on the society page).

Perhaps a better analogy would be peer review of a scientific paper. Start with a hypothesis (target market solution), the laboratory environment and experiment design (evaluation product), and brief summary of salient facts (hits target market?) with the entire research findings appended as an attachment (you decide for yourself). Do scientific papers have an open bar after they are published? I will go with the wedding theme.

Remember KISS. Keep It Simple Steve.

Until the next post,

Steve