Daily Network Monitor

If experience is the name, we use to describe our mistakes then Ipswitch and specifically the WhatsUp brand has gained lots of experience in the past 2 years. In 2005, after nearly a decade of building a brand with the name WhatsUp Gold that is still the envy of product competitors of all sizes, Ipswitch changed the product name to WhatsUp Professional. While sales increased dramatically and usage skyrocketed, the emotional attachment experienced with WhatsUp Gold name did not ring true for the name Professional.

The 17th century English Statesman George Savile wrote, “The invisible thing called a Good Name is made up of the breath of numbers that speak well of you” Our customers did in fact speak and we have listened. After two years of the Professional name, WhatsUp is being relaunched in 2007 as WhatsUp Gold and audiences from external users to internal developers to the media at large could not be more pleased.

A colleague of mine from a previous company told me the story of the Coca Cola debacle and while I am not foolish, to think our situation was as large and public as the ‘new coke’ one – the attempt at parallels is humorous.
In 1985, after 99 years, Coca-Cola decided to switch to a new sweeter and smoother coke–more like its archrival, Pepsi.

This historic decision was preceded by a top-secret $4 million survey of 190,000 people, in which the new formula beat the old by 55 percent to 45 percent. What Coca-cola apparently neglected to take into account was that many of the 45 percent who preferred old Coke did so passionately. The 55 percent who voted for new Coke might have been able to live with the old formula, but many on the other side swore that they could not stomach new Coke. Coca-Cola’s announcement change provoked outraged protests and panic stockpiling by old-Coke fans. Soon, Coca-Cola backed down and brought back old Coke as “Coke Classic

I can’t say that we have made WhatsUp any sweeter unless the term “sweet” can be used to describe “more features, more power and easier to use”. I also can’t claim that resellers and end-users were stockpiling boxes of the old WhatsUp Gold in protest. I can tell you that our customers advised, even yelled that Professional was a bad choice and we listened. Welcome back WhatsUp Gold; the product is new but the name is classic.

Imagine you had the power to leave your job as a network administrator for a day or so with pay of course. Next, imagine you’re granted an employee pass to the product planning session, marketing rah-rah party or the annual sales meeting for one of the large enterprise systems management companies like HP or IBM. What would you say once you arrived?

You would likely acknowledge that HP and IBM reflect much of the excellence the tech industry is known for. You would also be impressed with the corporate facilities and free drinks and snacks in the employee lounge but you would also ask, “Which one of you folks is in charge of gathering requirements from administrators like me before you go off and build your Openview and Tivoli lines?” After a moment or two of silence – you’d likely be inundated with a barrage of commentary around how effective customer advisory councils and on-line forums can be. Hmmm…just as you thought!

The point here is not to bad-mouth HP, IBM or any other enterprise systems vendor but enough is enough and on behalf of all overworked, overstressed and underpaid network administrators, you are making your voice heard.

You sit back in a clean new Herman Miller chair and yell Stop! You quickly point out to the lead spokesperson with the laser pointer that complexity does not equate to effectiveness and demands for simplicity does not equate to lack of ability. Network admins are busy professionals. More then ever before, an admins ability to keep the network up, running and supportive of the business objectives set forth are non-negotiable.

Administrators have neither the time nor the resources to take a week or two long training course in “how to use” one of these enterprise systems and are instead choosing solutions like WhatsUp Gold because it provides everything the most discriminating network admin needs to do his/her job without the stressful complexity of the user guide for larger systems. Last, you realize you do have the power…and that power is choice.

One of the big players in the Enterprise-class (meaning the software is so bloated you need a spaceship to hold the CDs?) is Computer Associates (CA) and the Unicenter product family. The product portfolio at CA, by the way, is so big they have to start coining new acronyms to describe it: they came up with Enterprise IT Management (EITM). At what point does a product portfolio large enough to cover everything become so large, overlapping and confusing as to become nothing?

CA recently announced they have appointed Ajei Gopal, Symantec Corp.’s former chief technology officer, to lead its enterprise systems management business unit.

We wish him well!