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Because we apply both a real-world perspective and real-world testing, we think of ourselves as not just a magazine, but as your peer. As technology editor Bruce Boardman puts it, we walk a while in our readers' shoes and suffer the blisters for them.

Bruce should know. He's got calluses, not blisters, from testing systems and network management during the past few years.

In the beginning, we dabbled in network management, evaluating the occasional administration tool or network analyzer. Three years ago, we decided to lace 'em up and also focus on more strategic solutions, from vendors including Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard, PLATINUM and Tivoli.

It took months of shoe-horning systems management products onto our Syracuse University lab network before we realized the enormity of this testing. So in 1998, we did it better, smarter.

We broke systems management into seven key disciplines (inventory, software metering, software distribution, network management, database management, systems performance management and security management), examined in five separate product comparisons throughout the year, encompassing some 44 products, from 16 distinct vendors in total. We evaluated more products in our lab than CA's Charles Wang buys companies in a year.

We've examined point products, integrated product suites and the big framework solutions, some of them with offerings in each of our testing disciplines.

In the course of his testing, Bruce watched the products draw so many maps of the 8,000-plus node Syracuse University network he can now draw the map himself...on a napkin. When a switch or router has a particular problem, it just calls Bruce directly to schedule an appointment.

Our testing culminates in this issue's feature (p. 40), which wraps an overview of the seven reviews with a final look at the frameworks themselves. These colossal offerings kept Bruce up so many late nights, Craig Kilborn actually started getting ratings.

We've gotten a few rocks in our shoes along the way. We were the first publication to get our hands on Microsoft's SMS 2.0 beta way back in January 1998 (the review ran in our April 1 issue). SMS 2.0 still isn't shipping at press time.

I remember having lunch with former Tivoli president Frank Moss, and watching him go nuts when he learned his product wasn't featured on our cover because his PR team couldn't provide packaging for our photographer. He was only mildly calmed by the fact that Tivoli received our Editor's Choice award. Perhaps he thought it was a shoo-in.

And saying CA, PLATINUM and Tivoli are competitive is as understated as saying SMS 2.0 is a little late. CA was livid when Unicenter received poor marks in a 1997 review. After that, we had difficulty getting CA to submit products. If I had a nickel for every review CA wasn't in last year, I'd have...20 cents.

Last year, several of us wandered up the Long Island Expressway to engage CA in a game of basketball in the gymnasium on its beautiful campus, where we were outplayed in a stunning loss. But I swear, it was the shoes, baby! Next time.

--Fritz Nelson, fnelson@nwc.com