A tale of 2 systems.....

In the same way that my brother can bore the back teeth off a cat, I can also ramble aimlessly on about things that only a select few would understand and today I will share one of them for you.

A good friend of mine works for a successful access control manufacturer who will remain nameless. I have spoken at great length with him about why the company I work for use certain products for certain applications.

We have 3 levels, we have our weapon of choice, then we have a system that we prefer when a network (PC based) system is required and then finally, we have a system that we prefer when the network is over IP (or the Internet on multiple sites in other words). My friends product falls into the IP category and we were having a friendly argument as to why we don't use it for standard PC based systems.

My point was that the particular product that we use is popular and rightly so because it is easy to use and also intuitive while being at the right price. My friends system is a little overpriced and not the easiest interface.

My point was that our company can go 6 months without using our proffered system and the minute we install it and fire it up, we recognise it, its like an old friend and its very easy to configure. My friends system is always slightly awkward to use after a break and there is always a setting that we forget to configure that holds up the process.

For example, today, we set up a system in Leeds. I told my colleague that every time we do this, there is always a setting I forget to configure on site. We get back to the central site (several miles away) and fire up the software and configure the IP details for the control unit and.......nothing, no sign of life.

Thankfully, there is a control unit on this site so I log into it and check my settings against those that I have used elsewhere and bingo, I spot the setting that I forget to configure every time and we are away!!! I phone someone at the remote site, get them to stand in front of thr access panel, tell them the change and we have life.

Now you can say to me, you are just thick Mike and you really should know your product better and I would agree but without that friend on the remote site, we would have had to get back in the car and drive to the centre of Leeds to make the change. Not good in my book. The product requires 4 settings to be in place to work over IP and these should be in big bold bullet points in the front of the user manual.

Now take our proffered product, it doesn't do IP at this moment but in November it will. In the same situation, as long as the IP details are correct, it will see the control unit and report back a serial number in the software. We then click on the serial number and confirm its our baby and we are away. No settings to worry about and no need for any on site programming. Its all done in the software.

That is why its our preferred product, it just works better.

Just to balance the argument out a little though.....my friends product is so robust and in 5 years of site installations over IP, we have never had a single problem with the equipment once it was live. There aren't many people who can make that claim in this industry!!!!

Kiss of death if ever I heard it.........