Karl Bests A Standards Anarchist <OR>
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Standards

"Perhaps I'm confused," I told Ralph, the rep from CU Systems. "You're telling me we can't connect the local PC's to the RS/6000 through the Ethernet..."

"That's right," said Ralph, glancing at his boss on one side and my client, the Credit Union VP, on the other.

"But the remote PC's have to connect through remote Ethernet bridges into the 6000?"

"That's right," said Ralph, giving me one of those 'boy are you stupid' looks.

"Why can the remote PC's connect through Ethernet but not the local ones?" I asked.

Ralph looked at me disgustedly. "I don't think that's an appropriate question for you to ask."

I looked at Ed, Ralph's boss. He had the decency to look somewhat embarrassed for Ralph's behavior. "Later this year, we'll have our 3151 emulator working across a network. Now it has to go through the serial port."

I tried another angle. "What's so special about your particular 3151 emulator? Can't I use one of the dozen on the market?"

"We download some of the software," said Ralph. "Why do you consultants always make things so difficult?"

"Do you mean this is a client/server application?  You have code running in the DOS PC that talks to a program running in AIX?"

"Well," said Ed, "We download some function key setups to the terminal server."

"So if I can duplicate these key setups with the emulator, will that work?"

"Why are you being difficult?" asked Ralph. "We say you have to use these terminal servers and connect through the PC serial port. Why can't you accept that?"

"Because we have a perfectly good Novell network running on 10Base-T Ethernet already. I plan my customer networks to conform to standards, and your software seems to ignore those standards."

Ralph laughed. "If you want our software, you buy what we say."

My customer nodded. "He's right, Karl. They have us by the short hairs because all our data is in their Series One software. If we don't upgrade to their software on the 6000, we lose that data."

"I hate to run serial cables alongside 10Base-T cables. There has to be a way to keep this network more open and standard..."

Reaching his breaking point, Ralph jumped on the conference table and laughed like a Mexican bandit. "Standards? Standards? We don't need no stinkin' standards!"

Ed grabbed Ralph and carried him out of the room, still screeching. "This isn't Burger King! You get it our way or lump it!"

I turned to my customer and showed him a piece of paper. "This quote from New Bank Software may be of interest. They'll convert your data for less than all of CU Systems terminal servers and the other extra crap they want you to buy."

He looked at the proposal. "Call'em up. CU Systems is getting to be too old fashioned for my taste."

James: Another real customer escapade, slightly embellished. Not the technical parts: that is exactly right. But no one jumped on the table and screamed at me.

Never underestimate the problem of public embarrassment. The names are changed, but the squirrely vendor recognized themselves and upgraded intelligent networking on their priority list. Didn't help my customer in the short run, but they saved some money later.