Product Lines
Ruminations on the System i Market
October 8, 2007
Why Do Some Vendors Make Getting Web Info So Hard?
I have a gripe, and I'm wondering how many people out there share it with me. My gripe is that there are a surprising number of product vendor websites that make it illogically difficult to get information from those sites about the products their companies offer.
I've never actually confronted a vendor about this, and I don't mean to imply all the violators are in our market -- they're not. I'm not going to name names, either. But if any of what follows strikes a distant chord with you, whether you're a software vendor or not, take a look at your own website and see if your company might not be guilty of at least one, if not a few, of these sins.
So as not to pick on anyone but to make the examples concrete, let's hypothesize a company that's looking for an application that's not actually available for the System i, but we'll pretend it could be. In honor of it being October, let's say you're the IT manager of a company that wants to offer fantasy baseball leagues to the public next season. You've got a shiny new 525, and you need a piece of software to run on it that compiles baseball statistics and lets users rank players based on any given statistic, for starters. Other features would be gravy, maybe gravy worth having, but it depends on what they are. But you don't want to talk to a salesperson yet. You want to get a feel for what's out there, what features are pretty standard in the available products, what special options only one or two packages might offer, what a general ballpark (pun intended, blush) price might be. After all, when you actually do call a salesperson, you certainly don't want to sound like you're some ignorant mark who's calling a salesperson of baseball statistics software for the first time, do you? So off you go on a search of baseball statistics application vendors' websites.
The first kind of website you find is what I'd call the "it's all about the marketese" website. It's the kind of place where you can't find any product information except vague generalities. These sites have tabs you can click to be directed to "product information," but when you get there, what you find is less than helpful. You find such treats as short documents full of lofty statements about paradigms and strategies, incisive statements on the importance of baseball statistics software to the community, and maybe a press release full of quotes from the vendor's own company officers about how theirs is the finest example of baseball statistics software they've ever seen. But what statistics does it track? Well, it doesn't say. Can you sort the data? It doesn't say anywhere that you can . . . or can't. And so on.
The second kind of website I'd call the "deeper mystery" website. It's more normal looking. It has some docs that actually describe some product features. That's helpful. It may even have white papers or a case study or two that describe the software in action or show an actual example of what it did for some company. More helpful. OK, so you're ready to put them on your short list. Oh, but does the software run on the System i? Ahhh, now they have you. After searching every document you can access, you can't even find verification that it runs on a Windows PC! It must run on Everycomputer, that mysterious machine that so many marketing departments seem to assume that all companies have, so why should they bother with niggling little details like the supported platform or OS? And what version of i5/OS does it support? Are you kidding?
Whew, let's move on to site three! But this one proves to be one of those "Oh, no, you're not gettin' nuttin' outta us for free!" sites. This one lists its products, each with a one- or two-sentence description that tells you "for sure, this is a baseball statistics software vendor all right," but not much more. But there's the promise of much more here. The site says it offers all sorts of information: testimonials, reviews, charts comparing (unfavorably, of course) competing products to this vendor's wonderful offering, maybe even some actual user docs. But there's one little catch. To access any of it, you have to fill out a long demographics form in which you identify yourself, your company, your phone number, your e-mail address, your company's gross income, your annual IT budget, how much you're willing to spend on baseball statistics software. . . and you're not allowed to submit the form if so much as one field is left blank. It's about everything you don't want to get into right now. And if you should bite like the good little fishie they hope you are, don't be going down the hall for the rest of the day because sales people will be calling momentarily.
Let's escape to website four. But oops! This is an "is this really a business?" website. This is the kind of website that has a few static pages that describe the business, but not necessarily any products. (Except for one product, unnamed, about which there's someone expositing on the tweak the company made to some piece of code buried somewhere in the product, which the vendor is offering as a public gesture towards openness, but comments in the code date it to early 1999.) There are testimonials about the enterprise, but virtually nothing about offerings. If you want that classified information, you have to fill out one of those anonymous request forms that are automatically e-mailed to "info@anycompany.com" (but at which the intern responsible for checking this e-mail account was laid off two months ago, and this was one duty no one thought to reassign). There's no clue about where this company might be located. There's maybe not even a phone number. You have to contact them their way or not at all.
On to site five. It's a megacorporation! It must have what you need. Oh, boy, look at all that statistics software! Five different packages, 50 different options. A GUI in Farsi for the Middle Eastern customers! You've got it made! Just call the 800 number. Oh, but . . . all available operators are busy. And when you do get through, the connection is dropping out, you have to repeat your request twice. "I'll transfer you." A phone ring, changing to another kind of phone ring, after five rings changing to a third kind. The guy who answers has an Indian accent, and there are pauses between what the two of you say while the satellite relays your words. "Sells department? You want sells? I'll transfer you," and you immediately get the "busy-circuit signal." You're punted, go back to start.
Pricing? Who carries pricing info on their website? That might lead to comparison shopping, and we can't have that! Even though in so many cases the actual price a company pays for software is totally subject to negotiation, most companies refuse to even show a nominal "list price." That would be giving away too much information.
Now admittedly these are worst-case examples, some merged together. But I've encountered every bad feature I've mentioned somewhere, nearly always multiple times. I'd love to hear from any of you who have experienced some even more outrageous instances.
I have to ask myself how vendors let their websites get this way. I imagine there must be some companies who think that if they're vague enough, people will have to call them on the phone, and then their crackerjack sales people will be able to sell a 500-seat license before the caller knows what hit them. Perhaps there are others who lack confidence in how their products stack up against the competition, so they keep it vague until someone can parachute in to the potential customer site and overwhelm them with superior friendliness, market expertise, and prompt customer service. Unfortunately, I think all too many times it's worse than that. The real problem is that the website isn't looked upon as a primary sales tool, just as an adjunct. "We'll upgrade it when we have some extra money some time." "We'll add a marketing doc when the (overworked) VP of sales writes one for us." "People who surf the Net for info aren't serious buyers, they're just browsers."
These attitudes seem illogical in the 21st century, and they are. But they're still a reality at too many companies. You'd think, at the very least, that companies in the computer industry would get beyond this mentality. Most have, but there is still a minority out there who don't get it, even as they merrily cut their own throats. How obvious does it have to be that your nice building and lovely campus aren't the public face of your company to a majority of your potential customers any more? Maintaining a website that describes your products, actually lists specific features, explicitly states in some easy-to-find place (buried on the last page of some white paper doesn't count) what versions of i5/OS your product supports, and shows a price (even with a "your mileage may vary" disclaimer) would be ever so helpful. It might even attract an actual customer. Why does it seem, though, that for some companies, this is still asking too much?
Posted by at October 8, 2007 2:33 PM
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