A popular term now is “agnostic.” It goes along with BYO (bring your own). I’m referring to the claims of companies that want to be agnostic as to what hardware their software is running on. They want to be your choice for Software as a Service (SaaS).
But, I’ve got a problem with this. I came up through the ranks of electronics development where the hardware design made a huge difference in what I could accomplish with the software. I see the same thing with mechanical hardware from industrial automation machines that are purpose-designed for an operation, to engines and transmission in our industry that are regularly redesigned to improve the hardware to achieve something bigger, like weight, fuel economy, and emissions. In my experience, integrated hardware works better, is cheaper, and runs faster.
Software integration is just as effective. How many different software applications do you use to accomplish a single task? Software companies work to make their software more capable and integrated to make it easier for you to accomplish something and save time and money in the process. That allows some money for the software companies to pay for the developments and grow further.
You can make anything work with anything else, given enough time, money, and manpower. Ever used brute force manpower to overcome a digital software limitation? This morning I could not fill out a .pdf someone sent me. I was working from a mobile environment and could not print, fill out, scan, and return digitally. I resorted to sending an email with the answers required by the form, relying on the live person at the other end to take my answers and put them into or onto the form, create a digital format of it and send it in to the company that needs it. That’s certainly not an integrated solution that saves time and effort. I care about such things.
I’m not agnostic about my hardware. I’m not an athiest that thinks hardware does not exist. I’m not agnostic about my software. I BELIEVE in integration and optimization! How about you?
