02/01/1999

The ABCs of Real Estate

By Todd Zeldin

ACG Professionals, Inc.

Everybody loves to root for an underdog. As a child, I remember hating the Yankees because they usually won and loving the Mets because they usually lost. My two favorite teams were the Mets and the team that played the Yankees. While the Yankees had Reggie Jackson and several other Allstars, the Mets had Bud Harrelson and several other players who barely hit for a .200 average.

I once went to a Mets game that featured a home run contest before the game, and Joel Youngblood was the Mets biggest power hitter and most renowned entrant! Then, out of nowhere, the announcer introduced a "surprise" participant. As the fans (all 3,000 of us) thought of Rusty Staub, Felix Milan and John Milner as the possible surprise entrant, from the dugout surfaced one of the greatest ballplayers of all time – Willie Mays! Notwithstanding the fact that Willie Mays had retired several years back and was now a Mets coach, the crowd went crazy with anticipation that we would see Willie Mays participate in this event and perhaps witness somebody in this contest actually hitting a home run. We cheered and yelled and screamed like we had just won the World Series, although I believe that the Mets were 30 games out of first place and it was still before the Allstar break!

Up stepped Willie Mays, a giant in so many ways, a man with the sweetest swing you ever saw. And with one swing of the bat, he hit one out...and then another...and another. I don't know how many Willie Mays hit out that day, but he won the home run contest and may have been the only Met to actually hit the ball. Furthermore, he sent a strong message to all of us who witnessed his greatness – don't bet against a perpetual winner.

Several months ago I met with a potential client to discuss their database needs. We talked about integrating their accounting system with a lease administration system so that leasing agents would be able to access tenant information and more efficiently manage the proposal process. We suggested that an integrated solution would eliminate input redundancies and reduce their dependency on word processors and spreadsheets to maintain data. The client was reacting very positively to our presentation and we thought we had an excellent solution for them; however, the meeting took a turn for the worse when the client suggested that they would only consider a non-Microsoft solution. Considering our applications are all Microsoft-based, this did not fare well for us. We chose Microsoft as our standard because we did not want to bet against a perpetual winner. I asked the client to elaborate.

I was told that their company philosophy, established by their MIS department and not users, had the acronym ABM – Anything But Microsoft. The company used WordPerfect and Lotus as their primary desktop tools, and had developed several databases using Lotus Notes. Only the Netscape browser (versus Internet Explorer) was supported and their LAN software was Novell. Reluctantly the company supported Windows 95, but only because OS2 was no longer an option for them despite its obvious superior technology. I did not disagree with that assessment only because I have always used the products that are most widely accepted and therefore only had experience using Windows. I asked them if they had any exposure to MSOffice or Outlook or Internet Explorer, and they told me that Microsoft was evil and destroyed any and all creativity in the marketplace.

I left that meeting quite disturbed. How could a company's MIS department be so determined to compromise its own staff's productivity because it philosophically did not agree with the industry leader? If they had a problem with all of the money that Microsoft was making, then why not just invest in Microsoft stock? Microsoft continues to outperform the market and by purchasing Microsoft products they would, in effect, be contributing to the bottom line of a company that they owned. I have been doing that for years. For example, our company standard is to purchase Dell computers, and our company's profit sharing plan invests in Dell stock. Makes perfect sense to me.

After further evaluating the company's attitude toward Microsoft, I realized that their ABM philosophy was really the ABCs of Real Estate – Anything But Common Sense. Although I can understand those who are somewhat sympathetic to ex-IBMers and their contempt toward Microsoft, I take the position that a company should adopt the best and most widely accepted tools in the marketplace and provide users with functional programs that allow for data exchange easily and seamlessly. Although it could be argued that some of Microsoft's tools might not be the best technically, they are generally the most widely adopted. Furthermore, there exist thousands of software developers who use Microsoft development tools exclusively. These objects or applets, as they are often called, can be easily integrated into any other Microsoft-based system. Thus, the plethora of options available to software companies is much greater if they choose the path of Microsoft tools rather than a less attractive alternative.

I am sure that you have heard the Microsoft commercial "Where do you want to go today?" If you follow the anti-Microsoft sentiment as expressed by our prospect, you will surely not get anywhere. Like it or not, you must include Microsoft as part of your total solution in order to maximize information flow and productivity. You optimal strategy is to adopt a "best of breed" approach. This requires a commitment to be on the leading (or bleeding) edge of new technology and to provide hybrid solutions to users. It is unlikely that any two software programmers will agree on a specific technology direction because the number of available choices are so vast; however, you must agree to analyze what options exist and to deliver to your user base products that will facilitate their job responsibilities. The path of success will most likely occur when there is significant interaction between users and programmers. It all goes back to the ABCs.

If you would like to address any interests, you may contact Todd Zeldin at tzeldin@acgpro.com