Just for laughs, and so that I can demonstrate how woeful the IBM site is to any IBMer who may claim "but whadda ya mean, it's a beautiful site, all the pages have the same colours!", I took screenshots of the convoluted path that I had to follow to get to the page where I could download 9.4 from. I'm not going to post them here because they contain some confidential information and in any case, as I mentioned, the page addresses will vary by user. Here we go:
Page 1: The
IBM Support Portal. It welcomes me by name at the top, showing that the login cookie has done its work. There's a link in the left hand bar titled Downloads. I click it.
Page 2: This is titled "Downloads" and has a graphic titled "Find downloads for your IBM products". Yes, that's what I thought I was going to be doing. There's a panel of Cognos TM1 links (since "Cognos TM1" is my "selected product" from my profile); one is "Cognos Product Downloads", and another one is "Cognos Legacy Downloads".
Do not go to the latter link unless you are a Cognos BI customer. I went there to see whether (say) 9.0 was still downloadable and got stuck in some kind of endless loop which told me that I wasn't entitled to any downloads at all. I thought that they borked my access and logged it as a problem on a downloads support link. A ticket on that issue has now been raised, but I now believe that this happened because this link is only for Cognos BI legacy products. Naturally there's no link on the ticket e-mail where you can tell them to fuggeddaboutit.
Page 3: This is titled "Cognos Product Downloads", with the abstract "Where to find IBM Cognos Product Downloads". Well, had this been a sensibly designed site it would be
HERE since I've now clicked on TWO links which are supposedly leading me to "downloads". There is a link to the "IBM Software and Services" site, one to the "Cognos Legacy Downloads" page (without a sign saying "Warning, Digital Quicksand Ahead"), and one to "Service Packs and Fix Packs". Having learnt my lesson about the second link, I go for the first one.
Page 4: Title, "Software and Services Overview". This includes a link to "Customer Sign In". First, remember what I said about the cookie previously. Second, yes, I suppose that it
would be too sensible to have the actual login dialog on this page. Why use one page when you can use three? Or seven?
Page 5: Title, "Sign In". This has a dialog asking for your IBM ID and password, as well as a form where new users can create an account. Ah yes, I remember having to do that; "Welcome to Hell, Population: You". To be honest I'm not
too fussed about having to re-authenticate as such since obviously the software is valuable. It's
how I have to reuathenticate... we'll come back to that.
Page 6: Title, "Authorization". "Please enter the temporary passcode found in your Welcome letter to fully authorize your IBM ID. My blood pressure rises by about 50 basis points, but I dig out the
9 month old Welcome letter, wondering exactly how unauthorized little me has been managing to raise service requests for the last couple of months. I enter the code from said 9 month old letter.
Page 7: Title, "Software and services online". This includes as a link "Software download and media access", the very thing that I expected back on page 2. I think that the theme song from "The Never-ending Story" is issuing from my computer speakers, but it's possible that I'm imagining it.
Page 8: Title, "Software Download & media access". "By clicking on the "I agree button" below you agree that blah blah blah blah..." My eyes glaze over and I promise never to say anything bad about UAC in Vista again, or at least until the next time I need to access the Management Console. But even then it's not as bad as this.
Page 9: Title, "Find downloads & media" {Blah blah blah blah}... oh wait, there's a link called "Download finder". I shake my head to try to wake myself up, splash water on my face and click it.
Page 10: Title, "Find downloads & media". Four radio buttons; "IBM Cognos TM1 Administrator", "IBM Cognos TM1 Enterprise Edition Legacy Proc", "IBM Cognos TM1 Enterprise Edition for non-production environment", "IBM Cognos TM1 Professional", none of which sound like the products that I use. Hello? Server / Perspectives / Web / Client / EV? I click on Administrator and hope for the best.
Page 11: Title, "Find downloads & media". A dropdown for "Select a language" (note that "profane" is not an option, though by this stage it should be), check boxes for "Platform" including Windows 2000 notwithstanding that that's not a supported environment for 9.4, and a couple of radio buttons for "Download Options" which include "Previous Versions" and "Associated Products". I select Yes for both of those just to see what turns up, leave the check boxes and language blank and hit the Continue button.
Page 12: I found it, I found it, great jumping jee-hosophat I've found it!!! Yes, there is actually a link to the download! It suggests that I download using Download Director, which is apparently a Java Applet. I select "I Agree" to the usual legalise drivel, hit the download now link and...
Popup window blocked. Hmm.
I allow popups from that site. and try again. Oh wait, gotta agree to the legal drivel again because it resets itself to "I don't agree". Away we go.
"Download Director failed to load or Java scripting is disabled".
Well, Java's not disabled, so...
I note a link to "update" Download Director. Instead it offers me the choice of using Download Director or... a
standard HTML download! Yes, you have to pull down one file at a time while Download Director can do multiple files, but who cares? 20 minutes and 85 blood pressure points after I started, I've found a link that I can pull a download from!
Oh, and the prior versions? Only 9.1 is there, not the "supported" 9.0, much less earlier ones.
And the "Associated Products"? None, but who cares.
Now, let me think how
I might have designed that. Or anyone who has graduated from a high school computer science class might.
OK, I can buy the need to re-validate. So it would be:
Page 1, the portal with a Downloads link.
Page 2, the downloads page login. This would check my entitlements against a database (SQL Server rather than DB2, naturally
) and determine which software I was entitled to.
Page 3, a dynamic page which would be populated from my wonderful SQL Server database (man I wish I'd learnt that product before now), specifically having download links for any software that I was entitled to. Maybe the generation of these links would be dependent on the user selecting a checkbox agreeing to any legalese.
Three pages, one login.
Not twelve pages, one login, one 9 month old authentication code.
Welcome to the Big Blue cutting edge of the digital future. Hypertension tablets will be available from the cabin crew.
