Never, ever buy Microsoft Dynamics RMS

Let me preface this with the following: I rarely hate software.

There. Prefaced. Let's good to the goods, shall we?

Here's how it went with Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System:

Let's say you go, "OMG! Cool software! This would run my store really well!" and you shell out the $15,000+ dollars to provision a handful of points of sale, because you think it'd be a good investment, and that its ease of use combined with powerful backend (a trait Microsoft is known for) would be a perfect fit for a given situation.

Now like you should do with any computer program, you want to apply the latest security and bug fixes. Uh Oh! Apparently, unlike Windows, Office, SQL Server, and pretty much everything else, it seems that with RMS, critical security patches, bugfixes, and miscellaneous updates aren't delivered for free via Windows Update. Instead, Microsoft demands hundreds of dollars to give you access to "CustomerSource" in order to get them. Can't shell out the hundreds of dollars per point of sale, per year? You're screwed.

So not only do you pay around $15k for the initial investment in the software for 5 or so points of sale, you don't even get security updates. No updates! Not even when XP SP3 and Vista SP1 will corrupt your database and screw up everything. Want to prevent that and save your store from disaster? That'll be hundreds of dollars, per POS, per year—all payable to Microsoft. I kid you not.

It gets better.

Say you want to customize something in RMS like you would in Windows or basically any other Microsoft product. Guess where the documentation is? One would assume it's freely available on TechNet or MSDN like pretty much every other Microsoft product. Hah! You wish! This is RMS! It requires a subscription to "PartnerSource," which requires you to take multiple $100+ dollar exams, and once you're done there, you have to provide customer references of those you've performed RMS work for.

Yes, that's right, in order to get access to the PartnerSource website, which has all of the documentation, customization guides, and software development kits (SDKs) that you need to help customers with RMS, you have to somehow already have access to that information—available only via the PartnerSource site itself—so that you can have the customer references to send to Microsoft in order to get access to the PartnerSource site. It's unbelievably insane.

On top of that, even if you're an MSDN subscriber already paying thousands of dollars per year to be one, and you have access to pretty much every product Microsoft makes, you get no access to download RMS—not even to develop or test with. So you can't even practice with the software before taking the exams unless you buy it first.

Bear in mind, this insanity is just to get to the technical documentation, SDKs, and updates that come free'n'standard with pretty much every other Microsoft product.

I'm trying to figure out analogies in real life for how ridiculous the idea is. Here are some I could think of off the top of my head:

• It's like requiring a baker to bake a cake before allowing him to buy or test an oven.
• It's like requiring a car owner to become a certified mechanic before allowing him to change a flat tire.
• It's like forcing air force cadets to fly F16s before letting them into F16 simulators (unless they want to buy their own F16 first).

In short: don't buy RMS. I don't care what you buy (or get for free), but avoid RMS like the plague. If they ever start to provide security patches, bugfixes, and documentation for free, maybe then it'd be something to consider. Otherwise, they've got you by the balls, and your entire business is at risk unless you pay whatever fee they choose to ask of you each year.

RMS could be great one day. All Microsoft has to do is not screw over the people who buy it. As it stands, however, my opinion is that it's a bottomless pit that both your money and your sanity will fall into but never return.