Any formal techniques for comparing two pieces of simular software ?

[Bumfluff]

Say you have been asked to compare 2 different pieces of software from different vendors but that are supposed to offer similar functionality how would you go about doing the comparisons of one with the other ? Is there some formal recognised method I could / should be following or is just up to you how you approach it ?

[PAH]

I'd build a functional requirements list that can then be matched against the off the shelf software solutions.

A simple summary of the requirements with a column for each piece of software and ticks against any requirements that are met would be an easy way of presenting it. Order the requirements so the most important are at the top to quickly show which are worth checking off further down the list.

If no software solution ticks enough boxes, or those that do cost too much, it's time to cost up a bespoke solution and get a contractor in to build it.

Don't forget one good contractor is worth 10 bob.

[Sysman]

In my experience these exercises can come down to box ticking, which is fair enough for eliminating the non-starter products, but thereafter you need to ask for a decent product evaluation period before buying.

Don't let yourself be fooled by the 7 day or even 30 day evaluation merchants. For a serious enterprise product 3-6 months is more appropriate.

[Freamon]

Also bear in mind that, apart from the various functional requirements you need to look at to evaluate whether the tool can do the job you need today, you will also need to consider many other factors such as:

* Future maintainability / flexibility to shifting business requirements
* TCO (licensing plus the kit it runs on, maintenance teams etc e.g. do you need DBAs to maintain it)
* Non functional requirements e.g. performance, scalability, accessibility
* The availability and cost of resources (people) in the marketplace to implement and maintain said tool <-- one of my personal favourites.

[Freamon]

This looks reasonably useful:

Simplifying the Vendor Selection Process -- CIO Update

Plenty more articles along those lines if you google "vendor selection process".

Once you narrow it down to 2-3 you may want to invite them in for a week to do a PoC. I've seen this done before. You give each vendor a meeting room to work in (preferably next to each other, to give it more of a competitive feel), give them a certain level of access to business/technical staff, and at the end of the week they present their solution.

(NB: This is easier in the private sector as you don't have to follow strict EU procurement law, but it can be done in the public sector also).

[Sysman]

* TCO (licensing plus the kit it runs on, maintenance teams etc e.g. do you need DBAs to maintain it)

Good one. I recall one product which needed:

• Windows admin rights to install/repair the client
• Oracle DBA for the databases
• AIX / HPUX / Tru64 / Solaris /VMS admin expertise and rights for the various servers it was talking to

This was a large shop where most of those functions were segregated.

Oh, and the license for each server was deliberately obfuscated and hidden in file headers, so a designated person needed to call the supplier for a new licence if you wanted to move it onto a different disk. Not what you want when recovering a dead system; this had the potential to affect recovery times and SLAs.

We called it the Job Creation Scheme.

[v8gaz]

Gartner are the experts in this field. If you are doing this work for a client, convince them to let you use one of Gartner's evaluation tools, that will manage the whole process and produce a 100 page report on why you made your decision.

If you are doing it yourself, then forget it, as it costs a bomb!

[TestMangler]

I've just lived through two product selection excercises and they were both basically done using the complete technical and business requirements to cross ref functionality against along with other 'scores' against items like supportability, scalability, upgrade paths etc. for one (which was a managed service rather than just a software package) i invited the vendors in to present based on a set of written requirements.

[MarillionFan]

Gartner are the experts in this field. If you are doing this work for a client, convince them to let you use one of Gartner's evaluation tools, that will manage the whole process and produce a 100 page report on why you made your decision.

If you are doing it yourself, then forget it, as it costs a bomb!

WHS

Have a look at the Gartner process. If it's enterprise then they may have already done it.

[Dearnla]

I do this for a living - each project to buy Enterprise software can take 4-6 months before you even get to the point of paying for the licences, never mind installing, training and running the software.

If you'd care to engage me to perform this for you, I'll give you a discounted rate of £500 a day for a 6-month contract.