Another one bites the dust — RIP SirsiDynix EPS Rooms

Wow — looks like another flagship SirsiDynix product has been shelved. According to reports from attendees at the SuperConference, the company is dropping Stephen Abram‘s beloved EPS Rooms product. Never mind, “shift happens“.
At the conference, the company also announced their version of Primo/Encore (branded “Enterprise”). Curiously, this will be a SaaS only offering. RSS feeds, tagging, user reviews, and ratings are earmarked for version 3 of the product (due around 2010). All I can say is that I’m glad we took the decision to implement these features ourselves, rather than waiting for our vendor to do it for us :-S
Edit — looks like some customers have come away from SuperConference without the foggiest idea of what the product road map is, so I’m happy to wait for clarification from SirsiDynix of their new products, and rumours of EPS’s death have been greatly exaggerated (by me).
Edit #2 — Sorry Stephen, as far as I can tell, it looks like the customer reports were indeed correct. There’s no “end of life” for EPS (in the same way that there’s no “end of life” for Horizon or Dynix Classic) and apologies if the original post implied that there was, but future product development will see the Rooms concept moving into the new Enterprise product.

9 thoughts on “Another one bites the dust — RIP SirsiDynix EPS Rooms”

  1. Must confess some scepticism about the SaaS aspect of Enterprise – do they think we’ll all upload our catalogues to them every night and they’ll be able to handle the indexing load?

  2. Dave:
    Interesting. Every single roadmap slide and presentation in Detroit included announcements of the next versions of EPS and the company’s high commitment to it. What was your source of this misinformation? Someone is having you on and it’s a shame you published this and misinformed folks. I hope you take the opportunity to contact me and I’ll put you in contact with the various product managers and executives who presented the product roadmap information at SuperConference so you can correct your facts.
    Stephen

  3. Hmmmm — some mixed messages coming out about EPS on the customer mailing list. Sounds like the underlying “rooms” concept will be folded into the replacement for iBistro/iLink (a new OPAC product branded “e-Libraries”?).
    I’m surprised that SD haven’t done a press release if they’ve just announced two major new products to the customer base?
    Should be interesting to see what the SD stand at the Library Information Show 2008 has on offer.

  4. I don’t understand. You’re posting incorrect information that a product is “RIP” based on confusing discussion list messages? BTW, your SAAS info is incorrect beyond North America too. Like I said, you can always check your facts easily.
    Stephen

  5. Stephen — here’s a quote from a customer who was at SuperConference:
    “EPS (i.e. SchoolRooms) seems to have fallen off the map as an OPAC option for Symphony … Instead iBistro/iLink with be the OPAC of the future merging into a product called e-libraries.”
    The customer in question is one who I respect highly and not a person I would expect to post misinformation (either accidentally or deliberately).
    Another comment on the mailing list from someone making the move from Horizon to Symphony implied that the SD sales rep had just told them that they would be moved to e-Libraries instead.
    If the EPS reports are wrong, then someone from the company needs to send clarification to the mailing list — I know that you guys closely monitor the mailing lists, so the lack of any prompt clarification from the company is a little worrying.
    It would certainly surprise me if EPS was abandoned, as I know from your presentations that you regard it very highly… but I’ve been surprised before.

  6. Well I didn’t go to the Superconference (I’m not super enough), but our consortium paid for EPS to be activated last January and they still don’t have a viable product for a large consortium. Hopefully whatever they have up their sleeves next will be good, but in the mean time, we are looking at open-source catalog overlays that look better, do more and offer more customization than ibistro.

  7. I am not impressed by Mr. Abrams’ tone. While following your posts, he could have added specific details to improve the discussion. Instead, he called you out without adding any helpful information. This is bad form.
    The current version of EPS is 2.2.1.2. I have heard that EPS will not be developed past version 2.2.2. This is frustrating for me, since essential improvements were slated for 2.3.
    The company will argue that “EPS is not dead.” But if they kill the development of a half-baked product, that argument is one of semantics. EPS is a “dead PAC walking.” Snippy comments from Sirsi representatives do little to restore my faith in their latest round of promises for a better future.

  8. Many thanks to SirsiDynix stalwart Jim Wilson for posting clarification to the mailing list.
    As reported by customers who attended the SuperConference, development of the JetSpeed powered EPS product will cease with the next release.
    Instead, the Rooms concept will be transferred into the new Enterprise product. From what I understand of it, Enterprise will be (broadly speaking) the SirsiDynix equivalent of the Primo and Encore products (from Ex Libris and III).
    So, the upgrade path for EPS customers will be the Enterprise product.

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