Exporting is not abandoning

One of the more knuckleheaded beliefs within many technology companies concerns import/export. Of course, every vendor wants to import data into their systems. But export...Not so much.

The assumption, of course, is that the only reason you export data is to abandon the system. However, it's easy to think of many use cases that depend on export. Here are a few examples:

• Migrating between a test system and a production system.
• Exporting data that will remain in System A in some form that System B can use. For example, you may continue working on content in a collaboration application, but you may need to export versions of it to a web content management system for publication.
• Exporting data as part of auditing or legal discovery, so that people outside your organization can have access to it.

And so on. We run into other kinds of export operations all the time, without blinking. Every requirements application, for example, has some mechanism for exporting content into PDF, Word, Excel, or other format familiar to particular audiences, such as stakeholders reviewing the list of features proposed for the next product release. Export-as-XML is a mechanism that serves many use cases, of which abandoning the system is just one.

Therefore, Google's announcement that it has prioritized development of export features for its application makes good sense. It may be a sign of confidence, and it may be a trust-building measure, as this InfoWorld article states. At the same time, it's also a necessity for the real-world requirements of many solutions.

Comments

[David Gerbino]

I totally agree with your assertion regarding the exporting of data from a product or service data store. It is not abandonment when you want to use your data that you are storing in someone products. I am currently working on a project now where we have a great product but the the data store is locked to outside databases. I have to build a customer report that basically reports on the entire data store so I can extract the data, convert it and then insert the data into a data warehouse so I can make even greater use of my data. It is so inefficient and counter productive. The vendor initially wanted me to input more data in so I could use its tool but that is backwards from my process. An open solution would have been best but there was none available to meet our specifications.

I hope my vendor follows Google's lead and makes data export (fully open system) a key functionality.