-by Matthieu Laurenceau, Technical Marketing, ESM R&D

My biggest frustration: Applications not allowing easy access with my favorite browser.

Some applications (or features) do not support usual browsers or require some heavy download, making the experience unpleasant or painful.

Supporting your preferred Browser

A lot of my friends are Firefox fans, but they sometimes are forced to use IE since some applications (or web sites) only support this browser from Microsoft. I spend most of my time using Chrome, but also have to use IE from time to time for some specific capabilities where vendors locked me down.

Changing browser creates various issues for the user: Unfamiliar with the capabilities Need to maintain security settings (certificates, etc.) twice Cookies become useless Credentials (login and/or passwords) have to be saved again Several Places to maintain Favorites   Most companies use Internet Explorer, so why is this an issue ? Well, IE cannot fit for all: What should Unix/Linux/MacOS users do ? There are always some individuals (like me or my friends) who prefer non-IE browsers for various (good or bad) reasons (personal choices, not required by Management) Some government organizations have made opensource browsers choices   From a branding point of view, not pleasing users of non-IE browsers can be very dangerous: most of the Linux/MacOS users (for example) are very active on Twitter and other Social Media sites, so they will have nasty words about the Vendor brand, and the market will know about it.

Full-web or not ?

• A JRE has to be used, quite often creating conflicts on the client (the JRE version for one feature not being compatible with the JRE version required by another app/feature)
• A Java Applet performs really poorly over the WAN or a 3G network, making it eventually useless (and customers have to deploy Citrix or other costly solutions)

These issues often appear on key features, like CMDB, and have to be watched really carefully by customers.

The question that customers should ask is not "Are you full-web ?" (all vendors will say Yes) but "What features require a local client or a Java Applet or any other plug-in download ?"

BMC Cares about End-User Experience

The BMC Atrium platform technology (AR System) supports a lot of browsers (and versions), for example IE6+, FF 2.0+, or Safari 3.0+, and never requires a Java Applet on the browser. It only uses lightweight web technologies, like on most Web 2.0 sites (we sometimes use Flash, like YouTube does )

• Self-Service for all employees (SRM)
• Service Desk, Change & Release Management, Asset Management
• Atrium CMDB, Atrium Integration Engine, SLM
• And more!

By sharing the platform, we make End-User and Administrator experience far more seamless. It also helps our applications to evolve faster than competition since each application focuses on its specific processes/features, not on web technology or database or user management details (read more on Low M&O Costs).

Take-aways

Using a browser is a no-brainer in a Web 2.0 World.

Supporting several browsers (and versions) is key to make all User Communities happy.

Always using lightweight technologies is the best way to achieve great and consistent end-user experience.

Customers need to ask the rights questions to avoid hazardous choices.

Matt

Last week, we introduced platform concepts.

Today, let's go deeper in defining the scope of a platform, and the value it brings to the Business.

Definition and Examples

According to webopedia, a platform "defines a standard around which a system can be developed".

This definition is quite technical, and makes a lot of sense for all of us when talking about Databases or Operating Systems for example:

• lots of applications can leverage a given database, they will all use identical grammar structures for SQL statements (that enable data storage and manipulation)
  
• on a given OS, lots of applications can be created, they will share some libraries
  

"Standard" is really meaningful also, because that's why it creates value.

Companies define standards for their IT, typical examples include:

• for Sales employees, Windows XP with Internet Explorer 7, on Dell Latitude laptops,
  
• for Servers, Windows Server 2003 or Linux Red Hat EL 4
  
• for databases, Oracle 9i/10g
  

For such companies, taking decision for these platforms means that it will be far easier (thus cheaper and more effective) to support them, and to deliver enhanced Business value.

Internal teams will be more focused, and acquire skills that they will be able to leverage (never re-inventing the wheel).

Not making platform choice means that they would have to duplicate a lot of work (which does not bring value to the Business):

• maintaining various hardware (so having each of them in inventory)
  
• learning patch management on plenty of OSes
  
• getting skills on configuration/scalability for multiple databases
  
• testing each software on all possible combination that they may run into (hardware, OS, database)
  

Now that we're clearer on definition and value, let's be a bit more specific and see how it applies to BMC Atrium.

BMC Atrium is a platform

As we saw in the previous examples, platforms need to "enable", they need to be "easily leveraged".

More important, for companies to choose a platform, it needs to never limit them.

For example, picking Oracle is a safe database choice: most applications that use a database actually support Oracle.

It doesn't mean that they will have to buy everything from Oracle, like their ERP (Oracle E-Business Suite) or their Reporting/Business Intelligence (Hyperion). They can continue to run SAP and Business Objects for example. Again, platforms are open and do not limit.

BMC Atrium, our comprehensive approach to discover, model, visualize and assign priorities to Business Services, fully respects these criteria:

• 100+ Applications leverage it to provide a Business-focused view of Service Management (BMC Products, but also partner products, opensource, and even competition)
  
• it's in production already at thousands of customer sites
  
• also, hundreds of partners around the world have skilled teams on BMC Atrium (it's supported by a very active Community)
  

In the next weeks, we'll touch on each BMC Atrium component and see other interesting aspects of a BSM platform.