I've been in radio silence temporarily as I ramp up the organizational process and start speaking with companies. Response to my invitations has been swift, strong, and enthusiastic. Nearly all the companies I've contact have agreed to participate in my survey and one or two more have written expressing interest in being included. To be fair, the companies that have chosen not to participate are still in pre-release/stealth mode, but I wanted to make sure they at least had the choice to join in. At this point, I've either scheduled conference calls with each company or doing so is in process, so there's been no hesitation on anyone's part to get started.
The two vendors I've already interviewed have been around for several years and their comments reflect their experience. What struck me the most was their evolution has been based on real-world experience that occurred before the Semantic Web was formalized by the W3C. Each founding team came with hands-on exposure to significant IT infrastructure problems and the recognition that Semantic Web technology is very well suited to solving these problems.
What's also come out of these conversations confirms that the differences will be in the details. Bear in mind I've only interviewed two companies so far and they don't compete with each other. But each one has taken subtle but substantial steps to differentiate the results their customers receive and likewise, the value of these results. Sorry, you'll have to wait for the report for me to clarify that rather vague statement.
More updates to come.
