A general perspective on Autonomy's policy, please

alexandru

Dear forum members,
I understand (or I presume) because I am an absolutely "greenhorn" (abecedarian) in yours - probably - field of expertise (or for the most of you) that you are harassed with my lack of knowledge, but all that I want is a point of start.
That's why I would appreciate if you would spend 1 minute and explain me why, such a great product line (as TeamSite) is so secretive about itself. If they brag about such important clients they have, why do not expose some material for study? They do not want more customers?
For example, I search (among others) the CSSDK documentation. I didn't ask for source code, for ****'s sake.
Sorry, but I am beginning to be frustrated.

Thank you very much for your time.

nipper

Dear forum members, I understand (or I presume) because I am an absolutely "greenhorn" (abecedarian) in yours - probably - field of expertise (or for the most of you) that you are harassed with my lack of knowledge, but all that I want is a point of start. That's why I would appreciate if you would spend 1 minute and explain me why, such a great product line (as TeamSite) is so secretive about itself. If they brag about such important clients they have, why do not expose some material for study? They do not want more customers? For example, I search (among others) the CSSDK documentation. I didn't ask for source code, for ****'s sake. Sorry, but I am beginning to be frustrated. Thank you very much for your time.

Don't ask any of us to explain Autonomy's reasoning. Many of us are baffled by it as well.

That being said, it is their product and their rules. Like you I love it when companies have documentation available for download for free/cheap. They do not.

The CSSDK is source code, because it is a Java API. The docs are Java docs. You will need to have your boss get some or get you to training where you will receive some docs.

alexandru

CSSDK is source code? I belived is/are som jar's. And wanted the exposed API's.

Thank you any way.

I think i wold drop the subject for some days.

Good day to everyone.

ISCBorisB

Look, it's a commercial product. They make money selling and servicing it. Whether you like the way they do it or not
it's their money, n'est-ce pas? Anyway, we do not work for HP. So, find local HP Representative and talk to him. In the
past I was able to get Documentation this way, whether we already paid for certain product or were just considering it.
 

Migrateduser

Well, since you're not going to go through/paying for training it looks like HP Autonomy will not be making any money from you. So, IMO, allowing access to their documentation to a non-customer is not in their best interest. Plus, since you have no experience with the software and are going in as a consultant hopefully you won't mess up their environment and leave a bad taste in the clients mouth for the HP Autonomy product. IMO, it is in their best interest from both a $$$ standpoint and a reputation standpoint to not provide their documentation to non-customers. That being said, I also like freely available documentation.

mart2001

You could go out and buy the book called Definitive Guide to TeamSite, but you won't be able to find certain things. You'll learn a lot from these forums, but the people on these forums will point you to the documents on their support site often even though those documents usually have many missing aspects and will lead you from one document to another document before you can actually get something useful done. But if you search the internet far and wide, you can find some of the older documents for maybe version 5.x and 6.x.

alexandru

Merci beaucoup, a tous....
I don't want to filibuster, but I live and I work (and I am happy, too) in a region of our beloved globe where "money aren't rising on the wall's". So, i think is common sense to not spend "even a dime" for something if you are not pretty sure is worthing.
I find it silly to attend a training course of $1000 (or books, or anything else) without having a good idea about what are you going to gain. A two pages fancy flyer do not convince me about nothing. This way of promoting (marketing) makes me subconscious to sadly think again at our throwaway society.
I apologise... I am aware that I know nothing (almost) about TeamSite, and that's why what I am going to say must be interpreted as newcomer's first feeling: combining my 6-7 days experience (I have read Brian Hastings's and Justin McNeal's definitive guide, I searched on forums and on google, and in particular Autonomy's site) with different (older or new) press releases (especially that one about the price HP payed for Autonomy, $10bln... for IDOL I think) my striking feeling about all that Autonomy is that they are much better on marketing than doing things.
I admit that I am a little angry. It's possible to reconsider all I just said above (if i will have the **** opportunity to try "the Holly Graal").
Sorry for those who make a good living working with autonomy's products.

Respectfully yours...

Rick Poulin

I don't want to filibuster, but I live and I work (and I am happy, too) in a region of our beloved globe where "money aren't rising on the wall's". So, i think is common sense to not spend "even a dime" for something if you are not pretty sure is worthing.

I don't think anybody here is out to burn money, but you have to realize that the development world surrounding this product stack has a steep entry cost, as does most 'enterprise WCMS' platforms. While some (e.g. CQ5) make a lot more documentation publicly available, what you can't read in technical manuals is the distinction between 'getting it working' and 'doing it right'.

For CMS's like Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress, the goal is often to whip up a small (<1000 pages) site fairly quickly, and to be as nimble as possible. In contrast, the 'enterprise' world needs to consider additional things like security, auditing, workflow, governance, localization, etc..all things that are almost afterthoughts in the 'small site' world, if they're even considered at all. That's why enterprise implementations are orders of magnitude more complex, and projects last months or years.

The key decision for you should not be "am I interested in finding out more" but rather "is this going to be a key factor in my business plan for the next 5-10 years and is there a need for this kind of work in my local marketplace". When you think about it that way, a $2000 investment that kicks off a 10yr career makes a lot of sense but only IF you can get it off the ground and you are very interested in this kind of work.