The other went to CA's NetworkIT, which sports an unbelievably low price and powerful performance-management options. NetView is a past winner and still has one of the most functional designs plus a newly refurbished Web interface. However, the product lacks strong exception and performance management and gave us some trouble. OpenRiver focuses mainly on event management, enforcing a management policy with object orientation, but it lacks integrated performance management. However, the suite is still a strong contender because of its underlying architecture, and we expect the product to gain significant functionality in its next release.
Pricing is never an exact science when doing a product comparison.
We expect some creative fudging, and we counter that by reducing the weight cost plays in our judgment. In fact, NetworkIT was so inexpensive that we went back for clarification. CA officials said they know the product is underpriced and are considering raising the price. Meanwhile, NetView and OpenRiver had the opposite problem, giving us huge numbers. You know that your mileage will vary, and plenty of extra add-ons are available for all the products.