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This article is a general reflection about the vendor vs everybody else
relationship. Although it is based on own experiences, it shouldnt be used for
judging the wellbeing of the company for which I work. But I think it reflects
most vendors feelings at some point in time. I certainly have been thru this
phase some years ago.
I am constantly following what discussions are going on in various
newsgroups. I tend not to get into the discussions most of the time, unless
its something directly related to our products or me as a person. It is
simply too timeconsuming to get into the 'I said/You said' kind of discussions
that they often turn in to. And although the discussions can be quite
entertaining for the bystander, they really dont move the world an inch.
They are generally not productive.
Some of the discussions are triggered by 3rdparty vendors announcements.
3rdparty vendors have only so many channels to use to let their potential
userbase know about some new or updated product, and the newsgroups are one of
the more important ones.
Many announcements are ending up in some longer debate containing actors from
the 5 following groups:
- The vendor
- The friends
- The foes
- The curious
- The cheapoes
I will list up what each category means for a vendor:
The vendor.
His task is to provide as much constructive and sales orientated information
as possible. Its from the announcement and from the vendors subsequent replies,
that people (specially potential new customers) form an opinion.
Hence its important never to oversell and never to lie or tell half truths as
this will always be detected by someone and will suddenly be the arrow that will
shoot the PR value of the announcement down.
The friends...
are obviously those that want the best possible to happen for that
particular vendor. There can be several reasons for that, personal friendship,
invested time and money in the tool or simply people who find sympathy with the
'cause'. Friends tend to be very loyal.
Supportwise its relatively easy to deal with friends. They usually try to
stay wellinformed about the product and how to use it. They also tend to spend
more time reading documentation etc. for the product.
The foes.
This is typically people who have invested a good deal of time and cash into
a competing product, and that often find the announced product to be a potential
threat to their own vendors wellbeing, and thus in turn to their own
wellbeing. Its quite easy to distinguish them from the curious ones.
Supportwise its a disaster to try to have foes as users or to try to
sell to them. The time taken and the energy used to try to convert a foe to a
friend is quite enorm and usually isnt well spend time or energy.
And if a foe is being turned around to be a friend, he usually
makes another foe in the former friend. And when he can do that once, he can
obviously do that again. That means that loyalty is not guaranteed with former
foes.
The curious.
These are the genuine potential new customers.
Many of them obviously dont post at all, but follow the discussion. They most
often dont have personal friendships or even any biases for or against the
vendor. They are, so to speak, 'fresh, unspoiled meat'.
But despite being unbiased reg. the vendor, they do have an aggenda, namely:
Why would shelling out x amount of dollars on your product do me, my income
or my life any good? And that is a good question that always deserves an honest
answer.
In some cases shelling out the money really isnt the best investment for that
specific situation, and the curious is better off looking at other areas of
his/her product/requirements to invest in. Sometimes the curious do have an
investment in some competing product, but wants to expand his/her's horizon and
learn new ways to do things, thus gaining enough knowledge to be able to better
select what fits the situation the best.
The cheapoes.
These usually have time and sometimes money invested in the vendors product.
They are usually users of the product, or at least wannabe users.
However they live from the idea that if they are using the vendors product
and perhaps even have paid some money for it, the vendor should
be eternally grateful and feel in debt to them, providing lifetime free
upgrades, support and fixes.
In some cases the cheapoes are people that are using the product for personal
entertainment, not trying to live of selling their own product.
In others the cheapoes are small to mid sized companies that are earning good
cash on their product which utilizes the functionality of the vendors 3rdparty
library. In some cases that vendors library is of such importance to the company
that the company wouldnt have had a product to sell without the 3rdparty
library.
Cheapoes can be well educated users of the vendors product, reading up on it,
being close to a friend to the product and trying to promote it to others. But
overall they are a bad investment of time for the vendor. They dont appreciate
that the vendor is not a vendor just for plain fun. The vendor most likely have
a family to feed, a mortgage to pay etc. and the 3rdparty library is, regardless
of that the vendor tries to keep up appearances, of great importance to
this.
All projects where no rewards are being returned to the vendor, dies!
As a start up vendor, its quite rewarding just to know that ones product is
being used in important places. Its a pat on the shoulder. But after some
time realities sets in. The user of the product require more features, more
support, more bugfixes etc. The vendor is providing that, due to his or
hers built in professionalism and sense of ethics.
But at some point a vendor simply burns out, thinking... what should I spend
time on? My family or my product?
At this point many vendors decide to close down. The product doesnt provide
anything for the wellbeing of the family and the family is the most important
part of ones life!
What does that mean for a vendor? It is about the same as telling your
girlfriend that your relationship with her is over after long time of
stress and love agony. There are two major feelings surfacing at that time...
endless relief.. the extreme burden have been removed from the shoulders, and
pain. You just lost your loved one... or your baby.... gone for ever.
As Ive learned from my dad... (can also be related to fireworks)... dont ever
go back and try to reignite a dud! It may explode in your face.
Hence the vendor typically moves completely out of the segment and generally
dont want to hear more about it. No more support. No more bugfixes. No more new
development. No product. And often it wont even go open source or freeware, as
that wouldnt guarantee not hearing about the old 'girlfriend or baby' again,
which will always hurt inside.
So... dear cheapoes! If you WANT a product to stay, to be
maintained, to be supported then YOU need to support the product
and maintain the vendor.
Dont think... what can a vendor do for YOU. Think what YOU
can do for the vendor you have already chosen!
Feed him/her! Nurse him/her! If your product is important to you, its usually
much cheaper to pay what the vendor asks when its upgrade time, than it is to
rewrite the application using something else (if that something else even
exist).
And if you choose to rewrite to something else, remember that,
that something else also have a vendor behind it, who have a family
and a mortage. You might finally end up drying out of vendors and thus turn
your own product to dust!
Kim Madsen
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