OSS Questions for Prospective Buyers

By: Bruce Bahlmann - Contributing Author (your feedback is important to us!)

Created: December 5, 2004

This paper is the product of OSS Vendor Analysis  and the OSS Vendor Listing which is available from Birds-Eye Network Services. 

The following is a collection of questions that have been assembled in an effort to probe prospective OSS/BSS vendors in an effort to understand the maturity of their product(s) and possibly whether that product is worthy of purchase or investment.

Base Platform: 

• What programming language(s) was the product written in?
• If multiple languages please specify what languages are use, for what percentage of the overall product, and break down why each language was used (for what purpose)
• How many different developers actually took part in its original construction?
• How many developers currently support the product?
• Was this product developed from scratch or is it based on something else?
• If the product was developed out of some other product, explain when this mutation took place, what the base product was, how it was acquired, who owns the intellectual rights to this base product, and how many developers came from this core group
• How many revisions of the product have been deployed and which (if any) were never deployed?
• When was the last point release commercially available?
• When was the last major release commercially available?
• Does this product require a separate third party application for normal use (e.g. BEA, MS transaction server, etc.)?
• What hardware and OS platforms has this product been designed to run on?
• What hardware and OS platforms represent those actively used by the installed base (if different from the previous question)?
• How was the hardware and OS platform chosen (customer or competitive driven)?
• What are the product dependencies to deliver various services and what areas of customer lifecycle management are not part of this product?
• How much documentation exists for the overall product?
• Are there detailed requirements, specifications for each feature developed? How current is the overall product design document (has it been kept up to date)?

Engine:

• What component of the software represents the workhorse of the overall application and why is it considered that?
• Was this component modeled after any particular algorithm or universally accepted message transaction processing software (e.g. JMS, Tibco, etc.)?
• What is the message construction of the inter-process communications and what if any standards or protocols are used?
• What is the theoretical and lab tested maximum throughput of the engine and how many simultaneous transactions can it handle?
• How much does the throughput depend on the machine hosting the application?

Workflow Construction:

• Can the application handle custom workflows?
• If so, how exactly does it do this and where and in what forms are the workflows stored?
• Is the overall application stateful – can it wait indefinitely for manual events to complete?
• What if any standards or protocols are used in the construction, execution, and modification of the custom workflows?

Design Goals:

• What fundamental need does this product serve to its customers?
• What was the purpose of designing the application in the first place?
• Does the product represent a core business and core competency of the company or is it meant to reinforce or boost another product line?
• If you had the opportunity to redesign this product what would you change and why?

Intellectual Property:

• What if any patents has been issued for this product?
• What if any patents has been filed as part of the development of this product?
• Does this construction of this product have any international protection?

Database:

• How is data stored within this product and what exactly is stored?
• What does the database interface represent and can it easily adapt to requirements of different operators?

Issues:

• What (if any) represent known issues with this software among its user community?
• What among these issues is the most difficult to solve and why?

Roadmap:

• What is the product roadmap for this product?
• If exists, what if any items on the roadmap have already been implemented and which remain in planning, scheduling, or in active development – specify concisely
• What items within the product roadmap came directly from current customers, which ones came directly from prospective customers, and which came from internal product management or senior management – specify concisely

Sales:

• What are the most unique features of this product among its competition?
• When selling against competitors how does this product overcome its shortcomings?
• Who buys this product and why do they buy it?
• How is the product sold – (stand alone, as part of a package, etc.)
• Who primarily sells the product (inside sales, partners, resellers, etc.)
• How long is the sales cycle for small operators, medium sized operators, and large operators?
• Is the product sold off the shelf or does it require professional services?
• What percentage of the product sale does the professional services represent (if any)?
• What amount of customizations is required (if any) for a typical sale?
• What percentage of all the customers who were ever sold this product maintain yearly service contracts?
• What percentage of the original sale does the average customer pay for a service contract?
• What (if any) outstanding promises have been made to existing customers as part of their original purchase or as part of their service contract renewal?
• What if any additional functionality within the product would represent a new sales opportunity as opposed to just a service renewal?
• Does the purchase agreements with existing customers allow for such a thing or is everything a renewal post initial sale?

Use

• How exactly are customers using this product today?
• What are the 5-10 of the highest complements customers have went on record (or off the record) in saying about the product?
• What if anything negative has been said about the product?
• Why are (or would) an existing customer stop using this product (and or seek a different product)?
• How are new deployments fulfilled?
• What is the migration path and process for a current customer with an older version of software to upgrade to the newest version?
• What kind of uptime does a typical customer experience?
• What kinds of events require the software to be completely down and unavailable?
• Does the software expose details of its operation to a top-level network management system (e.g. does it maintain its own SNMP agent and if so what kinds of data is available via gets or traps)?

Interfaces

• What inbound interfaces currently exist for this product and what protocols and standards apply to them?
• What outbound interfaces currently exist for this product and what protocols and standards apply to them?
• What equipment and applications have been successfully interfaced within the lab?
• What equipment and applications have been successfully interfaced at customer locations?
• What vendor or industry certifications has this product achieved as a result if it successfully interfacing with various vendors’ billing, customer care, network management, etc. systems?

Check out these other Birds-Eye.Net papers/products regarding broadband OSS:

• OSS Vendor Analysis - Great place to start learning about broadband OSS
• OSS Vendor Listing - Most complete listing of broadband OSS vendors available.

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