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January 22, 2009
Oh, you want to drive it? That's extra.
Funny how people seem to have forgotten that the purpose of data integration tools is to integrate data. A wide range of data. The sad truth is that the baseline versions of most data integration tools are incapable of integrating EDI, HL7, SAS or even Excel data. For them, DI is a simple flat-file to relational conversion.
Sure, you can pay extra for a 'dongle' that hangs off their baseline products to handle these 'exotic' data types. That's like buying a car only to find out when they hand you the keys that you have pay extra for a transmission so you can drive it off the lot.
But it's actually worse for DI tools, because those add-ons assume you're an expert in the product that generated the source data you're looking to integrate and are so complex that you’ll probably need to hire consultants to make them work. Been there, done that.
Then there's the cost. With Informatica, for example, even if your base license was $80k, it would cost you something like $240k to buy the add-ons necessary to integrate data from EDI, SAS and Tibco Rendezvous, if they even exist. And don’t forget to add in those professional services costs at up to $200 an hour.
So why bother?
Good question. There must be a better way…
- John Russell, co-founder and chief scientist
Posted by expressor software at January 22, 2009 1:30 PM
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