Corporate Jed -- CMS Talk

A few months ago, it sounded like a great idea to present a topic at a Content Management Conference. With deadlines looming and no visits from a muse, I am nearing the panic phase. It just might be time to crack open that bottle of Absinthe I smuggled back from Europe.

I have been asked to promote my talk, so here goes nothing...The LISA Forum USA, from April 10-12 in San Francisco, is designed to deliver a 360-degree view of what it takes to integrate globalization into your organization’s business processes – the specific...

Eh--screw the generic blurb--not really my style. Please check the box if this applies to you:

I deal with Content Management Issues
I need to think on a global enterprise scale
I wonder how others deal with the universal complex issues of content authoring, management and distribution to multiple locales and channels while retaining a consistent brand and message
I have some money in my budget to blow on a conference

If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, you might want to attend my talk at the LISA Forum USA in San Fran. As a bonus, you might find out who sucks as DST.

<insert-vendor-here> sucks at DST

Since I more or less work in IT, I get to deal with crap like the y2k change and most recently the day light savings time (DST) change. While this has been known for some time and most software vendors have released DST-specific patches months ago, one of my vendors of overpriced content management software has yet to release a patch. What makes matters worse is that their pending patch is not only a DST-specific patch, but a complete application service pack with tens if not hundreds of other unrelated fixes. So let me get this straight, I am supposed to:

• install this SP in a dev environment
  
• verify the DST patch works
  
• verify all of the other bug "fixes" work (they have a very bad track record)
  
• deploy this to a test environment for blessing by QA
  
• deploy this to production during an out of cycle release

Oh, and all of this needs to be completed in less than two weeks?!?! No thanks!

After reading between the lines and talking with a few internal folks, the DST fix in the service pack is a simple JVM upgrade. So, I could put my system at risk and install the SP in a two-week turnaround, or I could simply run a JVM update tool from Sun. Yeah, I choose this option.

At the end of the day I will be DST compliant, but I am not feeling warm and fuzzy about our software vendor.