MySQL consultants more expensive?

The most interesting presentation at the the IT fair was given by Magnus Stenberg from MySQL (an open source database provider from Sweden bought by Sun Microsystems for 1 billion USD).

The topic was if property management systems are ready for an open source approach. The question wasn't really answered. It was more about the story of MySQL and how clients in general could use their database technology. A very interesting presentation though.

Started a debate
Anyway, since I believed that there was to little debate and I wanted to increase the temperature I stated that one of the reasons when suppliers don't go for mySQL could be that they believe it will be more expansive when it comes to hire consultants in this field and referred to an article in Computer Sweden (the largest IT paper in Sweden). Not surprisingly, this point was denied. (Even   laughed at which in a sense proves the point...)

The 'fact'
Unfortunately I wasn't able to defend my point (I wasn't given the microphone) with 'facts' (it is still just an article) and showing the actual source of my point, so here is the link to the article (in Swedish). The story is about that an 'open source' consultant could cost up to 1 500 SEK/hour, compared to 950 SEK/hour for a .NET developer.

Of course, there is not one (1) truth when it comes to prices and it will change over time. My point is still that it could be one of the reasons why a company hesitates to make the change to open source program. Not saying that it's wrong to go there.

Well, at least the temperature raised....   ;-)

IT & Property Fair in Sweden

Today I attended the IT & Property fair in Sweden called 'Fastighetsbranschens IT-dag' (Swedish) which is arranged by SeminarDesign. This is the second year.

I hoped that it should have grown since last year, but the number of attendees (130) and exhibitors (6) is almost exact as last year.  Hopefully it will grow in the future because I believe there is need for an event as this one. If not for our suppliers and believers to meet up an discuss 'war stories'.

ARGUS Software starts blogging

The vast majority of the RE.net (and here) blogs are towards the residential public. Therefore, I'm delighted to find out that ARGUS, one of the largest suppliers of financial software to the commercial real estate industry, has started a blog dubbed 'Global Viewpoints'.

ARGUS describes the blog as;

"This blog is produced by ARGUS Software. The blog will cover a range of topics related to the global landscape for real estate investment and development, and blog visitors will have an opportunity to share their opinions on blog topics. The blog also will serve as an educational tool and provides information including industry reports and recently published books related to real estate, as well as a list of global industry events and links to industry media outlets."

They started of in the early November and has so far been able to produce a large number of posts. It will indeed be interesting reading. Especially with this list of writers.

Happy to be back in Sweden

All those beaches, all the sun, all the nice people, all the good Singha, all the shopping, but there is nothing like home (the office to be honest) when it comes to speed..

Property information standards show results

Today I attended an open meeting with the Swedish standardisation organisation Fi2 (in Swedish 'Föreningen för förvaltningsinformation') which aims to make it easier to exchange information within the lifecycle of a (commercial) property.

The organization was founded in the mid 90s and is showing more and more results. Especially among suppliers of Property Management Systems but also in the new field of energy reports that from 2009 must be reported to The National Board of Housing, Building and Planning from 2009.

Pisces in the UK
Another organization that shows result in the area of standardization is  the UK based organization PISCES. At the PCS Expo in London in October an impressive presentation was conducted by Chris Lees from Calvis had a brilliant walk through of the project how one of UK's largest property owners has gotten four law firms to use Acrobat Reader documents to fill in and send the lease agreements (including over 200 data fields) using a PISCES standard XML schema. Read more about this at this Realcomm Advisory.

The need is there but it is hard work
There is no question that there will be benefits for standards in the real estate industry but it is hard work to set it in place. So I'm very impressed by those people and companies that is putting efforts behind it. Keep up the good work.