FWD: Documenting products integrated with your own

Subject: FWD: Documenting products integrated with your own
From: Anonymous User <anonfwd -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 10:56:55 -0600

Name withheld upon request. Please reply on list.

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My company has developed a client-server product that relies on several
third-party applications, including SilverStream Application Server,
Oracle, and Netscape/Internet Explorer.

I'm wondering what should be documented about these third-party products.
We have two camps here. Marketing/Sales wants to see us put together kind
of a "tip and tune-up" guide that describes the kinds of maintenance you
need to perform on SilverStream and Oracle in order to keep everything
running smoothly. Engineering and Documentation (yes, that includes me)
feel, however, that documenting these kind of things isn't necessary (and
we don't want to run the risk of making ourselves look like "experts" of
SilverStream and Oracle). We'd like to say, basically, "Regular backups
and maintenance need to be performed, for instance...blah blah blah. Refer
to your SilverStream and Oracle manuals for more info."

Is this second approach reasonable? How have you handled this type of
situation when dealing with third-party products that are integrated with
your product or that your product relies on?

Right now I look at this situation in the same way I look at documenting
Windows or a browser or word processor. Sure those can be part of the
system requirements, but they're not our products. We expect that the user
will be familiar with these products (yes, we state that) before they begin
using our product.

Thanks!

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