Introducing the rebranding of Real Time View

Formerly the site for commentaries by Pyalla Technologies, LLC.

The selection of this photo, above, taken during a recent NonStop Regional User Group (RUG) event, by happenstance, captured the spirit of this rebranding of Real Time View as it addresses the central theme of this and future articles being free from constraints.

While this appeared in my photo folder it is also a testament to the more than fifteen years of writing, posting, blogging that has taken place all in the name of information sharing among members of the NonStop community. In this case and with what you will read here, the theme of freedom of constraints means that central to the articles published in each issue of NonStop Insider will have a focus on the NonStop vendor community. Too often this segment of the NonStop community is under-reported as it is, more often than not, subject to misconceptions together with a lack of visibility.

This rebranding is being done to simplify searching for updates on all things related to NonStop. As of now, you will find a Real Time View presence on whatever media channel you prefer:

For the NonStop community there is Real Time View blog –
https://itug-connection.blogspot.com/

For the Connect Community publication, there is Real Time View column–
https://connect2nonstop.com/

For updates on Facebook, there is now a Real Time View group –
https://www.facebook.com/groups/145269955527534

For commentaries on LinkedIn, there is the Real Time View group –
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1878133/

And of course, there will be articles to this publication, NonStop Insider, appearing with each issue.

The NonStop vendor community is experiencing a major transition. It would be easy to refer to this transition as a tipping point, but it is not really the time to resort to a cliché. Rather it is a time to take stock of what this community is witnessing in 2024. The early signs of transition began back in 2022 during the NonStop TBC 2022 event (Burlingame, CA) and subject to further explanation during the NonStop TBC 2023 event (Denver, CO) in 2023.

These were major events for each year and have always attracted a crowd. A mix of HPE NonStop team members, NonStop customers and the NonStop vendor community where the attendance was split almost a third for each group. If you have as yet not noticed, all references here will be to a vendor community with no reference to partnerships. The only partnerships that may be referenced will be between NonStop vendors as vendor ecosystems show signs of further development.

Why vendors and not partners? Effectively, partnerships between the NonStop team and the NonStop vendor community continue to be dismantled. If you haven’t noticed the 800lb gorilla in the room at these events, a body that has become so powerful that it can act without regard to the goals and objectives of others, then perhaps its time to shine a bright spotlight on it. After all, it is big. It is influential. And for many, it is unstoppable. When we first heard the phrase “Can’t stop; Won’t stop; NonStop” little did we fully appreciate that this was a tag line that cut both ways.

For the NonStop customer it highlights the unique attributes of NonStop that have been present for five decades. That’s goodness. But as we begin celebrating this golden anniversary in earnest, it has become increasingly difficult to separate traditions created through the decades from the newly introduced practices of the NonStop team. To put it bluntly, if your products are not a part of the newly created NonStop Price Book, then you can continue as a vendor but you are no longer a partner. A NonStop initiative that cannot be stopped? That’s not so good. Tough words? Maybe. But this needs to be said.

Has any NonStop customer received a product presentation about a product or solution not on the price book? Have any of these customers enjoyed a joint presentation given by both the NonStop solution architects and a lead developer from a vendor not on the pricebook? Perhaps more to the point, has a NonStop customer enjoying a longstanding relationship with a vendor been subject to energetic presentations by the NonStop sales team about the value of migrating away from a vendor’s products simply because they are not on the price book?

What the world of NonStop RUG events has highlighted for your team from Pyalla Technologies, LLC is just how entrenched a practice this has become and it speaks volumes about the real goal of the NonStop sales teams.

Now we can’t really hold the NonStop sales team at fault here. Well, not really; success over the past two years has been visible to all attendees at major NonStop events and it’s not a difficult conclusion to reach without crossing any confidentiality lines that expectations over new sales numbers have climbed. The best way to address this is to turn to increased software sales and the list of vendors on the NonStop price book are having a major impact on how the NonStop team goes about its business.

But can we say the NonStop sales team has become greedy? The Wall Street movie of the 1980s may have contained the tag line, Money Never Sleeps, but we all can recall it was also the movie of Greed is Good! This is an open issue and one we can all have a say in but the bottom line is that for many of the products available from the NonStop pricebook, prices have climbed to where in some cases, according to my sources, nearly doubled.

Is this unexpected? Not really. It was either keep the prices and give half to the selected vendor on the pricebook or double the price and keep them whole. Or some variation on this theme. On further questioning, it all comes back to conversations occurring at key customer events organized by the NonStop team and held around the world where the NonStop team was asked to consider adding all products to the NonStop price book to simplify any future purchases.

There was another movie made a lot earlier, The Good; The Bad and The Ugly. While no one in the NonStop community can readily identify the ugly, you can still get the picture. On the other hand, the quote I remember from that film was “If you save your breath, I feel a man like you can manage it.” The context today is lost on me – was it a hanging? A walk in the desert? No matter, the NonStop pricebook doesn’t represent perfection. There was no RFP, no benchmarking or performance testing and certainly no effort to verify that what was portrayed on slideware as actually being present in the product. And as we all know; competition is good and leads to better product offerings.

What is missing from the messaging that the NonStop community has become subject to is how the choice of products, not on the NonStop pricebook, is a matter of simplicity with line-of-sight to support and to product development that is unmatched elsewhere. In practice the selection of such products should be easy – as easy as picking Linus Torvalds to lead your latest Linux project. Or choosing Charles Barkley for your pickup game of basketball. Stepping outside your recommended products, as promoted by the NonStop sales team, is easy and deploying these products is simple. And this is a fact not lost on major NonStop customers. After all, some of the most substantial, robust and enterprise supportive NonStop solutions available today are not on the NonStop price book.

But before closing, yet one more movie reference. When it comes to movies, is the NonStop vendor community becoming Dead Man Walking? Recall the quote, “Confront their own beliefs about forgiveness and redemption.” It is not too late to see the NonStop sales leadership team pivot yet again. There are competitive products to these held by those we interact with from the NonStop sales team. And here’s the paradox: HPE NonStop management wants to see a healthy list of vendors supporting NonStop on their own dime. All the while, the NonStop sales leadership want to promote just a narrow selection of some products that are good, some not so good and possible plain bad and yes, based on experience, truly ugly.

It’s just not too late; in theory perhaps. However, in reality, can the likes of Gordon Gekko be tamed and give us a true price check? Can that Man with No Name save the day and give us pause to breath? Or are we letting the NonStop vendor community fade away, dead man walking? It’s your choice as a community but for Margo and me, we simply can’t see this divisive situation holding much longer but it does all come down to you, the NonStop Customers. And let me close with those famous words from baseball great, Yogi Berra:

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
But in practice there is.”