Microsoft has launched an updated SDK today and as some people have already seen it includes a new tool for creating/editing BDC application definition files. A number of people have already asked me a few questions so rather than answer them all individually a good old blog post seemed the best way.
1, Are you going to kill yourself now?
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Back in May 2006 Microsoft said they weren't going to bring out a tool to create application definition files and were hoping third party tool providers would fill that gap. We feel BDC Meta Man has done that, but for whatever reason Microsoft have changed their minds and are releasing a tool. We always thought MS would release a tool for the next version of SharePoint so we knew that BDC Meta Man may only have a shelf life of 3-4 years, but after evaluating we thought it would be both interesting and worth our time. We've certainly not made our money back financially from the tool yet but it's been an amazing learning experience taking a software product to market.
Are we annoyed with Microsoft? Of course, but it's their business to change their mind and I'm sure this won't be the last time they will impeach on a tool provider. What does it mean for us? We just have to work harder and keep improving BDC Meta Man!
2, Are you going to stop working on BDC Meta Man now?
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As you can probably already tell most definitely not. While the MS BDC tool is now available and free, after using it for a short while I am very confident that there is still a need for BDC Meta Man. Sure the MS tool will help people who've previously been using notepad to create application definition files, but to use it you still require an in depth understanding of the BDC meta data model which from building BDC Meta Man I know is not straight forward without studying the SDK for a long time!
The aim of BDC Meta Man has always been to allow users to create the application definition files without having to learn the meta data model, and we'll continue to work hard to make it easier for everyone.
3, Why didn't Microsoft buy BDC Meta Man from you?
- We had one discussion with MS about them purchasing a worldwide license of BDC Meta Man and so allowing it to be free to everyone. We were happy to go ahead but after going back to them two weeks later they had decided to release what you see now.
4, Why will people still need BDC Meta Man?
There are many reasons we feel BDC Meta Man will still be useful to many people
- Automatic generation of Finder methods for databases
- BDC write back
- Native support for SQL Server stored procedures
- Drag and drop UI for creating associations.
- Simple, and Intuitive drag and drop interface for creating associations.
- Continual releases. Generally we've released a new version of BDC Meta Man every 2 weeks making new features available to you. We've got some exciting stuff planned so keep watching
- Free support for BDC Meta Man customers. Although the MS BDC tool is free, you'll need to pay for MS support. You could post on the MSDN BDC forums of course, but you'll be lucky to get someone from MS give you an answer there (we're on there though providing support!)
- Slicker UI. We feel our user interface is a lot slicker than the MS BDC tool user interface. As I've already explained you still need to understand the BDC meta data model to make use of the BDC tool.
- Free Support via Email directly from SharePoint MVP's and BDC experts.
- Guaranteed future upgrades for free. Oracle Write back, Stored Procedures and Views are already in development with a planned upgrade within the next few days.
So the work will continue. We have MS as a free competitor, and a competitor that copied our UI, but we'll still keep working to make the BDC easier to use for you! We'd love to hear your feedback, both on the MS tool and BDC Meta Man. Feel free to send it to nick@lightningtools.com