IT Vendor Raves

Gartner vs ZL Technologies- Is the Magic Quadrant unfair?

Gartner is under attack.  ZL Technologies has sued Gartner Group claiming that the "Magic Quadrant' is misleading and favors large vendors with large sales and marketing budgets over smaller innovators..." 

Gartner's response (oversimplified) is that they offer opinions that are protected free speech. Some pundits hail ZL as sticking up for the rights of the smaller vendor, while others call ZL's lawsuit sour grapes.

Whether or not ZL has been wronged, the elephant in the room is the godlike power of analysts like Garnter.  Until recently, there have been no independent information resources to counterweight analyst opinions. Prospective customers have learned to distrust vendor supplied information, and advertising-based resources carry the stigma of being influenced by sponsoring vendors.  (Don't get me started about white papers morphing from academic treatments to marketing spin. )

Our solution- IT departments should supplement analyst opinions by using reliable input from "wisdom of crowds" services like VendorRate. After all, who knows better about how a vendor actually performs than the existing customer base? Why trust just a single opinion when you can view the collective opinions of many existing and former customers? 

Most importantly, benchmark scoring creates a level playing field between "best of breed" vendors who often perform at higher levels than a big brand competitor.   The niche vendor will never make the Magic Quadrant, but prospective customers can compare vendor performance scores to see which vendor performs best in the eyes of the existing customers.  

And when compared with the expense of a single analyst opinion, VendorRate’s "voice of customer" services is an affordable, trusted resource to help all organizations select the best vendor for their needs, regardless of size.  As we like to say, "Before you buy,know the score"

You can read ZL's summary of why they are litigating on their website http://www.zlti.com/courtdocs/ZLvGartner.html 

"Gartner... for the average user"

An emal from a experienced technology professional sent to her network of IT colleagues. She asked only that her name not be used due to the governance requirements of her employer. 

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Hey guys (& ladies!),

I had the incredible experience of attending Oracle OpenWorld last week in San Francisco. It is the largest technology conference in our country right now.  I have returned with a zillion new ideas.  But I had a chance meeting with the CEO of a company called VendorRate and I want to pass that info along. Most of you have been part of my personal peer group for years and this is the exact type of information we have asked from one another.

VendorRate.com is “affordable business intelligence” where qualified and verified IT professionals rate the vendors they do business with. Then you can pull a variety of reports to help you with your decision-making. I can see this being useful when researching a new project. I can also see an incredible value when renegotiating support contracts or long-term agreements.

When I looked at the VendorRate.com reports, I thought it was sort of like Gartner products for the average user. I remember our early days with ASCII (the State User Group), and most of our meetings were centered around “Who do you use for ………..” That’s exactly what VendorRate.com is!

Clearly, I’m a fan. I got to see the inside of the product and was shown how they validate an IT Professional and also how they validate a rating. There will never be an instance where a vendor can pad the votes or skew the ratings.

So, VendorRate.com needs a couple of things.  One is simply to use the website.  The other is to rate your Vendors! There are more being added on a daily basis, so the value of the reports is improving every time I check them out. It is a very short, quick rating process.

I wish you could have seen the presentation I did.  I left that chance meeting thinking, why didn’t we think of that?  Give it a try and let me know what you think!

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Come give VendorRate a try at www.vendorrate.com.  And if you are a public sector employee, rate a vendor to receive a free one year subscription tothe On-Demand reporting mentioned above.

Revenue on! - A grownup step for a tech startup

We are nervous and excited.

We're only a few hours away from flipping a big switch at VendorRate. We are about to convert the site to our paid subscription model. We knew we needed to keep this site independent from vendor spin. So, from Day 1, we decided never to accept vendor advertising.

However, this means our rating information has to be of sufficient value to make businesses willing to pay for it.   We already have thousands of ratings from IT professionals that provide insight into vendor performance. We've spent thousands of hours in interviews with business professionals at companies of all sizes to be sure we were capturing and displaying important vendor information.    Our price points are affordable for businesses with 10 or 10,000 employees. We have heard thousands of WOW! comments about the ease of use of our On Demand reporting system.   And we're told this fills a huge hole in the marketplace.

Despite all the great feedback,  we really don't know if we are hatching an eagle or a turkey.  

We're holding our breath. Please come watch with us as we take our first flight from the nest.

Rick's list of 25 'Must Attend' B2B IT trade shows for 2009

Here is list of major events and trade shows in 2009 that we think we should have vendor rating stations for our "Top Rated Vendor" reports.   Now it's time to prioritize!

Event	Start Date	City
TDWI World Conference - Winter 2009	2/22	Las Vegas
Design and Verification Conference & Exhibition (DVCon)	2/24	San Jose
The Channel Partners Conference & Expo - March 2009	3/1	Las Vegas
SD WEST 2009	3/9	Santa Clara
IWCE - International Wireless Communications Expo	3/18	Las Vegas
CTIA WIRELESS	4/1	Las Vegas
Storage Networking World, Spring 2009	4/6	Orlando
RSA	4/20	San Fran
Informix User Group Nat'l event	4/26	Kansas City
Oracle User GroupsCOLLABORATE 09	5/3	Orlando
Microsoft Tech-ed	5/11	LA
America's SAP USers' Group -	5/11	Orlando
DB2 User Event  North America	5/11	Denver
Interop-Las Vegas	5/17	Las Vegas
Global Connect 2009	6/7	Pittsburgh
Supercomm	6/8	Chicago
System Storage and Storage Networking Symposium	7/27	Chicago
TDWI World Conference--Summer 2009	8/2	San Diego
Open Source World San Francisco	8/11	San Fran
TechWave 2009	8/16	Wash.
Channel Partners Fall	9/23	Miami
CTIA-Wireless IT & Entertainment	10/7	San Diego
Oracle OpenWorld 2009	10/11	San Fran
TDWI Winter	11/1	Orlando
Interop-New York	11/16	NYC

Why do we hate our telecom providers?

We released our Top Rated Report for the 4th quarter of 2008. http://www.vendorrate.com/news/2009-01-13-VendorRate-Q4-Report.pdf

 Our executive summary mentioned a trend we've spotted during our first 10 months of observing IT and telecom professionals rate their vendors.  The strongest undercurrent of dissatisfaction among business professionals is directed towards their providers of wired telecom services, wireless telecom services, and data services.  After asking myself why for a few months, I think I've come up with my own answer. 

 I think the answer may be in their policies of captive contracts and device exclusivity agreements. If our company wants to roll out Palm Pre smart phones once they are released, we have to switch from Verizon to Sprint.  We did not deploy iPhones because we did not want to change to AT&T Wireless.  I personally had to "settle' for my 3rd choice of Blackberry.  My first two choices denied, I started out mad 14 months ago, and I'm still harboring resentment. A bitter aftertaste is always present.

Our business is totally dependent our data, voice, and wireless providers.  These vendors have leveraged our helplessness to lock most businesses into agreements we don't like.  I don't care how nice or knowledgeable the person on the other end of the transaction attempts to be, they are merely trying to  put air freshener in their outhouse.  

That's my take.  What's your organization's experience with your telecom and wireless vendors?

What I learned selling to Boeing-

One of the biggest lessons I ever learned in business came when I was attempting to get Boeing to buy our products for all their computers.

We had gotten pretty smart maneuvering our small company to win Enterprise accounts. We'd closed major agreements with Travelers, Liberty Mutual, Bank of New York, and FedEx.  Two of our major accounts, Starbucks and Safeco Insurance, were in Boeing's back yard. We had even won prestigious vendor awards with Lockheed Martin plus a major California utility.

 As I was bragging about our outstanding service, I mentioned our "24 hour response time."  This was always a show stopper, because our larger competitors were notoriously slow in responding to technical support issues.  Instead of being 'wowed' by our response time, my counterpart began to lecture me about the real meaning of service in a mild southern drawl.

 "We're in the aircraft business.  We don't care about response time, we care about RESTORATION time.  If a plane goes into a dive, it's not just how fast the pilot pulls back on the stick. It's how fast the nose of the plane comes up."  

This message has never left me, and it transformed our customer support to a new level even though we were already award winners.  

All vendors are going to experience a problem with a customer some time in their relationship. While communication is highly important, fixing the problem in a timely manner is the most critical element of customer service.  

 What I learned from Boeing- Fix customer problems rapidly.

Are you a high maintenance customer?

I'll paraphrase the head of customer satisfaction of a publicly traded company here in Silicon Valley.

"Despite the numerous statements IT companies make about providing great customer satisfaction, vendors really want customer apathy. Most companies hope a customer buys their products and then goes away."

I've heard the tag "high maintenance given to many customers over the years. In most instances, it is the vendor who is high maintenance. 

 Think about it. How many times have you heard a business say any of the following?

“We want our order shipped to us wrong.

 “We really don’t care when we get it.  Nobody on our team is scheduling their time for implementation or installation.

“Sure, emailing us with a response 4 days from now will be fine.  I don’t need the answer anytime soon.”

 “Please take our system down during peak hours.

“It’s ok if the price changes. Budgets are just guidelines around here.

“Send your junior field service folks to help us. We want to learn as they do.”  

The truth is that customers want to fix their business issues, not create more problems. Customers usually become “high maintenance” when their order is late, when the product is hard to install or use, when training is incomplete, or when the sales rep over promises and under delivers.  

The great vendors know the best customer relationships begin when the customer asks their first question  AFTER an order is placed.   That's not high maintenance, it's good business. 

2008 Top Rated Vendor Report

We’ve released our first year end report of top rated vendors for 2008. http://www.vendorrate.com/News/2008-12-15-VendorRate-Annual-Report.pdf

Our model is based on customer feedback, not internal analysis. We display summary satisfaction scores for IT and telecom vendors based on ratings we receive without editorial comment. Even our report titles have headings such as top rated vendors and lowest rated vendors, not best or worst vendor. 

For first annual report, the VendorRate team decided to momentarily step out from behind the curtain to share who we think were the best vendor and reseller based on rating scores, the caliber of the rater, and verbal feedback we received throughout the year. After all, we don’t just see the numbers everyone views on our website, we also know the identity of the raters, and we get to speak with thousands of attendees at trade shows, seminars, and industry events. By the way, we only offered our opinion for Vendor and Reseller of the Year. The remainder of the 2008 year-end report summarizes ratings entered by verified IT and telecom professionals since VendorRate went live in March of 2008.

When our Q4 report is released in mid-January, we’ll go back to letting the voice of the customer do all the talking. We’re much more comfortable staying behind the scenes while collecting and tabulating the opinions of IT professionals.

 

Oracle OpenWorld 2008

The Oracle community has been fantastic, and they have been sharing ratings in volumes.  We often have a wait at our 6 rating stations, and the users are promising to bring VendorRate back to their organizations.   We are quite grateful for the wonderful response, and our "Best Vendors" report from the Oracle community will definitely be our best ever.  Look for the report to be released towards the end of next week.

Also, please visit booth 2042 in Moscone South.   Another iPod Touch will be given away.

Oracle OpenWorld 2008

The Oracle community has been fantastic, and they have been sharing ratings in volumnes.  We often have a wait at our 6 rating stations, and the users are promising to bring VendorRate back to their organizations.   We are quite grateful for the wonderful response, and our "Best Vendors" report from the Oracle community will definitely be our best ever.  Look for the report to be released towards the end of next week.

Also, please visit booth 2042 in Moscone South.   Another iPod Touch will be given away.