I’v decided to speak out about various topic that affect me as a QNX
consultant.
As some of you may have notice there is currently 3 QNX consultants seeking
contract that have offer their services via the newsgroups. One of them
having quite an exposure via books and stuff.
First thing I’d like to complain about is the total lack of means to reach
the QNX community. At one time there was the QNX Magazine sent
to QNX users. One could advertise product or services. I remember
the first think I always check in QNXNews was the adds and the “new
products” section. I wanted to keep in touch with what was available,
hardware and software wise. The article were interesting but I was more
concern about what was available for QNX out there. That is no longer
the case today.
Where does one advertise QNX related product or services; answer is nowhere.
I have often heard how QNX has a total disregard or at best no interest in
third-party provide. At that time I though maybe these people were
exagerating.
Today as a service provider I tend to agree with them. How can
Connect Tech, Corman, Astra, get in touch with the QNX community.
I remember a customer who gave me shit because he wasn’t made aware
of the existance of Automap before, isn’t that odd !?!? The only
mean the QNX community can find out about the stuff out there is
mainly via the QNX partner web page, that sucks if you ask me.
I look at my situation (seeking work) trying to find ways to reach out to
new
market and I realised I’m facing a wall.
I’m also facing other challenges. In some ways QNX and I are competitors.
Our target customers overlap. I guess they don’t have much insentive to
help us
out (and I don’t really expect them to) . When there is plenty of work
that’s a
different story as consultants can fill holes QNX can’t, everybody’s happy.
When work is sparse it’s a different story, but that’s ok it’s the nature of
the
business.
That being said, as a consultant finding work is part of the job, if I don’t
like it I can just get out !!! My real gripe is having no means to reach
out to people that don’t read newsgroups or the partner web page…
Maybe I could try spamming, not!
Because of the somewhat competitive nature (with QNX) of being a QNX
consulting I notice how other consulting company that offers “plus-value”
seems to be in a better position. If you look at Astra, Cogent, Nexware,
Pace, Q-TPS, Ruzz, and others (I bet you’ve never heard of some of them…)
they have develop specific area of expertise, setup-box, industrial control,
etc. In practice I can’t really compete with these guys. My background
is industrial control, can I design a setup box, sure I can. Will the end
product be as good as Astra for example, no way. Experience is of
immense value.
The way I’ve position myself is, a company with an expertise in
a specific field (lotery terminal for example) decides to use QNX.
Then I’m there to deal with all the QNX related issues while they
concentrate on their area of expertise which is the lotery. Worked
so far
Ok time to conclude, why this post in advocacy; I’m officialy complaining
about the lack of tools to get in touch with the professional QNX
communicty. Who’s responsibility is it, I have no clue. What I know
is that every month or so I receive a 4 pages document from WindRiver
with lots of info about available product, even though I never
bought a thing from them (only order an eval kit)…
Cheers!