I am responding again to Shijaz Abdulla’s post as I wanted to clear the air. 

ManageEngine Respects Microsoft, A Lot

We have a lot of respect for Microsoft as a company and personally. I am sure most of us started off with Microsoft. My first computer was running Microsoft Windows; my first browser was IE; my first email was Hotmail. Microsoft is a company that has had a significant impact on the lives of many people and businesses in the computing era.

It’s true, and we all know it.

But, You Can’t Deny That Today Microsoft Is Lagging Behind in Technology

Today, I don’t use MS Windows or Internet Explorer or Hotmail, and that is the case with most people. Microsoft is still catching up with Bing, Zune, Windows 7 phone, and tablets.

In terms of technology, Microsoft is still catching up on web search, portable music player, mobile and virtualization.

Enterprise IT Management Software Is NOT Your Forte

My point is that Microsoft has not done a great job in the IT Management space. Microsoft competed with HP, BMC and IBM and has built its products just like them — modular, yes, but requiring a lot of code level integration. HP calls them plug-ins. The end result is base framework that you call products with management packs tied with API and code level integration. Call it what you may; it makes IT Management painful to install, configure and maintain. For any customer who understands release cycles, consider the release cycles of Microsoft SCOM and then the cumulative management pack and additional plug-ins on top of it — the partner’s base management framework and the partner’s plug-in. When you think upgrade, isn’t it a nightmare? 

In my opinion, people are ok with modular, but when your products are granular, it means you need more than one product to do something meaningful.

A Fact Is a Fact Is a Fact

When busting myths, you have to state facts clearly.

Microsoft IT Management Suite is based on a framework and management pack model, and when you want to install a partner’s management pack, you have to install another framework and then the management packs. I think this can be complicated for SMEs and is carefully hidden in your mythbusters.

• SCOM is complicated, from installation to deployment. It requires all the procedures I stated earlier and even more to get everything working.
• Service Manager is a complicated six-piece puzzle. You claim that it can also be installed on two servers. However, it requires more than five (management) packs to build a Service Desk with incident, problem, change management, self-service portal, CMDB (with discovery) and reporting.

BMC and HP also use this framework and management pack model, but they have a different name for the management pack — it’s a plug-in (how creative!). BMC’s stripped down version has the suffix ‘Express.’ I am not sure what Microsoft has — is it Service Manager-SMB Edition?

Business Conduct and Fun

Maybe the “enterprise-gas” and “over-paid” comments were bad, but where is your sense of humor? If you didn’t appreciate the sarcastic, wry humor, call me silly; however, please don’t bring up “business conduct” for that. Anyway, you are going to find us like that — we are all about humor, emotions, passion, etc. We believe that IT can be fun. It’s too serious. There are hardly any jokes made, so chill, Dude (our business conduct allows us to call our competitors Dude). Maybe, you should learn a thing or two about pouring out emotions from your CEO. I will be in Qatar around March 5 and 6 for a conference. Do you want to catch up over a drink?