An Oscar for AutoMate
With my wife and daughters rooting for Colin Firth and Natalie Portman on Sunday night (my son smartly busied himself with the Xbox), I got to wondering whether there were Oscar awards for best software. Since the Kodak Theater (where the 83rd Academy Awards where held last weekend) is a mere five miles (click here for directions) from our new world headquarters, perhaps Network Automation should look into annual pats on the back for great code. Turns out there are a multitude of annual software award programs and presentations. Some of these are presented by industry magazines/websites, others by industry groups and still others by software companies themselves (like the Appexchange Best of 2010 Awards).
However, there appears to be no software industry standard equivalent to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the organization that bestows Oscars. Now it turns out that AMPAS headquarters is the same five-mile distance west of our new home as the Kodak is north (directions here). Is there a trend ensuing?
Seriously, there are obvious and very distinct differences between the development of great software and the development of a great movie. Firstly, we have no on-screen stars. Secondly, great software has to be measured against a 24/7 performance criteria and not against a two-hour suspension of disbelief. Still, most software companies for the sake of concepts like “mindshare,” are constantly searching for the elusive “wow-factor” in their functionality. So, perhaps we can look to the craft of making exceptional feature films for hints on how to make compelling user interfaces. Being so near Hollywood, we are not shy about tapping creative resources, and continuously seek to innovate in our area of focus, namely Automation Software.
To help in our endeavors, we launched our Forums many years ago as a place to interact with users of our software. The Forums are an investment in a real-time feedback mechanism for a better understanding of how our audience feels about our products. This investment has paid off to us and our customers since its inception. Every day, we enroll new customers who choose to implement AutoMate because of its flexibility and ease-of-use. Those are serious wow-factors to us. If you are not already doing so, we invite your active participation on the AutoMate Forums.
But what about the Oscars for Software? As with so many industry standards, the Oscars got going not by the onus of some public institution, but rather from personal initiative. Louis B. Mayer, one of the founders of MGM Studios, got some of his closest friends together in 1927 in a gathering over dinner. From a night of steaks, martinis and wine at the landmark Ambassador Hotel, “L.B” had his lawyers draw up the charter agreement for AMPAS and its original 36 founding members. That trend we mentioned before? Our new HQ overlooks the site where the Ambassador stood for 84 years before making way in 2005 for construction of the now famous RFK Community Schools.
Should there be a desire for history to repeat itself, we might all be hoping for a Bill Gates or a Larry Ellison to step up and create a gathering of industry notables just like L.B. did with the movie moguls. Once that happens, we can start booking the limousines and donning the gowns and black-tie attire. Until then, we’ll keep putting out AutoMate sequels with special attention to high-value added wow-factors like keeping our customers abreast of automating new popular Cloud-based and virtual technologies.
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