The more I find out about the Horizon ILS, now a deprecated legacy system, the more I think that it was developed with good, solid ideas that have not been well incorporated into SirsiDynix/Vista’s Unicorn/Rome ILS.
One of the blog links [1] I sent yesterday to some coworkers has some very good comments on and information [2] about the development process leading up to Horizon 8.0. It seems that Dynix was moving to more openness so that other products would work together with it better. Quote (from [2]):
“Horizon Open Technology will be built on open systems, including a commitment to support the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) as Horizon’s native platform… Dynix also plans to provide open XML APIs to make it easy to expand Horizon. The goal of Dynix is to make Horizon the library automation development platform for third parties and library IT people.”
Now I’m not voicing any great dissatisfaction with Sirsi Unicorn/Rome. If my tech services manager all likes it, I like it. But it’s becoming more apparent to me as the independent network weenie that instead of Sirsi buying Dynix and making one great product out of the best features of the two, it was more a simple buyout of the competition so that Unicorn would have more market share. Doesn’t make for a warm and fuzzy feeling.
[1] http://blogs.ala.org/pace.php?title=what_next_part_2_the_open_source_ils&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
[2] http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/staff/apace/papers/Dynixvision.pdf
June 7, 2007 at 8:54 pm |
Hello there. I think you missed a step. It wasn’t a question of SIRSI buying Dynix and then dropping Horizon. Vista Equity Partners bought SirsiDynix which was at that stage already a company running two products and whihc at that stage hadn’t dropped either of them. If you look at a couple of blog URLs you may see that the decision to drop Horizon 8.0 was taken after he acquisition and after the SrisiDynix CEO was bounced from the company – depite the rump management saying that dropping Horizon 8.0 was a “business decision” I offer the following in luumination:
http://www.gordian-knot.org/index.php/2007/06/07/rome-some-day-well-laugh-about-all-of-this/
http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/06/06/ozsdug-meeting-and-demo-of-rome/
June 8, 2007 at 8:52 am |
OK, well, this is an unexpected but pleasant surprise. I hadn’t realized anyone was really reading this blog, but after checking my stats it seems that I’m getting some hits. Given that I’m now on my way to being rich and famous, I should try to do a little work on this site.
Martin:
Thanks for your comment. I was trying to be a bit sarcastic, and I know that is hard to convey in print, much less the informal writing style of most blogs. Yes, you are indeed correct that Sirsi and Dynix went to great lengths to characterize their “joining” as a merger of equals, and that the two product lines would be maintained. Post facto, however, given that now there is now only one company with only one product, that being Unicorn/Rome, the skeptical might be forgiven for thinging that was the plan all along. No, I don’t really buy into that argument totally, but it makes for interesting discussion. Again, you are obviously correct that the decision to “drop” Horizon 8.0 came after the purchase by Vista, and in fact, that decision may have been quite recent, after the review by Talin Bingham of the two development processes.
Of interest, I hadn’t realized until just recently that Martin Taylor, ex-Microsoft exec, was the acting CEO of SirsiDynix. I think that may be more significant for the company and it’s future than might otherwise seem to be the case. I may pontificate on that point in a separate post.
I’d give anything to know what Pat Sommers, et al, really wanted to do with the two product lines before Vista purchased the company. He may have really intended to maintain both Horizon and Unicorn, but Vista changed all that? Which lead to his quick departure? Donno.
Finally, thanks for the links. I’m immensely flattered that another blogger has cited my post; I need to write more clearly and carefully in the future I guess.
–glowworm
June 8, 2007 at 10:31 am |
Hi!
You’d be surprised how many google blog alerts there are these days.
Please excuse the typos in the original comment which came at the end of a long day.
Yes, the “Merger”. I was at ALA 2005 in Chicago and it sure as heck didn’t sound like a merger then. A few people at the fresh new-look SD booth saw a number of suits from Huntsville getting familiar with the Horizon product. Kids on Christmas morning. The feeling I got was that SIRSI’s principals wanted a new product and *that* was Horizon 8.0. Somehow things went off the rails afterwards – and I wonder if the newer owners (after Seaport sold SD to Vista Equity Partners) thought there was too much money going out, and not enough coming in.
Martin Taylor has a rep going a long way back (another google alert!) and I agree he will be a significant player, although we could (and should) also note that he’s not a platform guru for Microsoft any more, he’s a principal with a private equity firm which IMHO is probably more concerned with turning companies around and sellling them on for a profit. I would be prepared to wager that SD are not owned by VEP for very long.
I’m fascinated about what caused Pat and the others to jump when they did, and whether his parachute had been gilded sufficiently beforehand! Bailing out two days before Superconference was bizarre.
Keep on blogging.
-Martin
July 3, 2007 at 12:31 am |
Hi Glowworm
I suspect you’ll find there are quite a few SirsiDynix customers who read your blog
Sadly, SirsiDynix still hasn’t really mastered the basic art of customer relations and communications, so I often learn more about the company via RSS feeds and blogs than by their occasional official announcements!
Ditto — keep on blogging.
Dave