IBM/Microsoft/any other major brand. If you’re in IT (and you are) you’ve heard this or similar. Buy the safe option and cover your back. Why? Because they are the best innovators, provide the best service, that sort of thing yes of course. But is that true, was it ever? Maybe there was a time but they get big, they get complacent and rot sets in.
Remember that these Icons of IT buy smaller companies to acquire their intellectual property (e.g. Visio) so they are not the only ones capable of a good idea. Service? Well we’ve all seen industry monoliths become laughable in their service provision as growth forces outsourcing and fragmented issue ownership. It is common to get a better, more personal service, with smaller companies these days. Frequently the products that you avoid today, because they don’t carry a major brand name, are the products that you will be paying mega bucks for tomorrow when they do.
So whats wrong with buying from the little guys?
- poor support.
- possible short existance and the risk associated with investing in a company that might not be here tomorrow.
I have heard this said many times. Well yes, if people don’t buy a product then yes, it will fall by the wayside. But if the little guy is offering you a product, at an absolute fraction of the price of the big guys; a price that is disposable, what’s the risk? if the little guy solves your problem and saves you thousands of dollars what do you care if he’s not there tomorrow, you had your monies worth in the first go.
an example:
We recently had a product on trial with a customer, conducting comparisons with a major brand. They wanted to audit drive space/capacities. I recieved a call from the chap conducting the trial and this is what he said:
“at 8:50 this morning I started to install the agents for ‘the major brand product’ on 75 servers, it’s now 3:30 pm and 35 have completed; I guess that all 75 will be installed by tomorrow morning. I’ll have to come in early in the morning to reboot the servers (required after agent install) and then we can get some results from 75 servers.
Yesterday I ran your ScanITDrive, it took a few seconds to open from the Internet, I inserted 3 pieces of information (SQL Server IP, address space start & end IP) and clicked the scanbutton. The address space contained 1,500 nodes including the 75 servers. In less than 5 minutes (including getting the app from the internet) I had the drive information for every drive on 1,500 computers."
So here is the comparison :
- Major brand 75 computers in 24 hours, price for 1,500 computers £23,000, yes that is pounds"
- Our product 1,500 computers in less than 5 minutes, price for unlimited computers $299, and yes that is dollars
So I would ask you, how bad does our service have to be, how imminent our demise, to make buying from the little guy a poor and potentially job threatening choice?
Surely it’s not about brand names it’s about results and value for money, so whilst you can’t get sacked for buying a name you could for making the wrong choice!
We are so confident in the ‘value for money’ of our products that we have added advertsiments for our competitors on our site for comparison purposes.
Comments