My apartment building is currently in the midst of a full blown elevator fiasco. An elevatopocalypse if you will. In an attempt at better understanding the problem I learned quite a bit about the elevator industry this weekend. Its actually a somewhat interesting industry (not as interesting as my other current reading topic though). It turns out that elevator industry shares some of the same problems as the software industry. Namely proprietary components and vendor lock-in.

First a quick background on how many elevators are serviced: Many buildings that contain an elevator have a full time maintenance contract with an elevator company that covers basically all repairs, preventative maintenance, replacing parts, emergency services, ect. So in the case of an apartment building, all elevator related problems are handled by this company, not your landlord.

When an elevator is first installed in a building the landlord takes bids from these elevator companies to install their elevator system and these bids include the maintenance contract. In software terms this is a lot like having a company build, install and maintain an email server for your business.

The problem is the elevator companies often use proprietary components that only they can service. Here is a quote from one of the better articles I read on the topic:

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s), as you may know, build elevator systems that can only be accessed by using a special electronic tool. These tools typically utilize patented or copyrighted and highly proprietary software to communicate with the elevator control system’s on-board computers. When such copyrighted software and special equipment is required to service an elevator control system the building owner has only one option for ALL future elevator maintenance and repairs — the original manufacturer.

Generally, the original elevator control manufacturer retains sole ownership of the required electronic tool. Purchase of the OEM’s special tool by any competing elevator service company is not allowed. As a result, the owner’s service contracts are limited to only one provider — the original equipment manufacturer.

As you can imagine this puts the building owner in a difficult negotiation position during an elevatopocalypse. You can’t just say “Screw it guys, you aren’t getting this done fast enough I’m taking my business somewhere else” because no one else has the technology to service your elevator. Meanwhile you’re getting tenants screaming at you on the phone and starting angry blogs. The elevator companies often give steep discounts on the original installation and setup of an elevator because they know they’ll have years of locked in support (whoops I mean maintenance) contracts.

On paper the original elevator bid using proprietary components probably looked like an amazing deal. It was cheaper than the other guys and came with a full time 24 hour maintenance contract! Wow, what a deal! Way better than using non-proprietary parts that don’t come with a support contract. But just like with proprietary software, you’re often left with your dick in the wind when things go wrong.

I think this serves as a good cautionary tale for the software shopper. Next time you say “But they don’t offer support” maybe that’s not such a bad thing. As with any business contract remember:

Sometimes you jerk off the bear, sometimes the bear jerks you off.