Commentary

Patricia Keefe
 

Same Old Story

It's déjà vu all over again - but is anyone listening this time? A panel of top-tier user companies this week once again sounded the call for software vendors to start delivering better quality products. They also made it clear that they long to be close to you - vendors that is. For all the endless marketing blather we hear about customer relationship management, it's clear that the only kinks to be worked out are not just in the software.

It's déjà vu all over again - but is anyone listening this time?

A panel of top-tier user companies this week once again sounded the call for software vendors to start delivering better quality products.


More Windows Insights

White Papers

More >>

Reports

More >>

Webcasts

More >>

They also made it clear that they long to be close to you - vendors that is. For all the endless marketing blather we hear about customer relationship management, it's clear that the only kinks to be worked out are not just in the software.Also once again rearing its ugly head (to the vendors that is) was the cry for what amounts to pay for results, or in other words - software fees based solely on business outcomes. If the software doesn't do what it's supposed to do, vendors don't get paid, or, they get paid less. The concept is gaining ground as an acceptable compensation model in a number of areas, and it could just be the incentive vendors need to knock off the dribbleware and the wobblyware.

Users don't want so much, I think. They just want secure software that works. They want to implement software to solve business problems, not spend their time and money implementing patches to software problems. They want their vendors to be as invested in solving their problems as they are, and they want collaboration that will lead to products that solve real problems in workable ways. Sounds logical, and like a win-win to me.

Developers desperate to stimulate stagnant market share and grow profits might want to take a step back from the current merger frenzy and consider another approach to winning new customers.

This one involves listening to and working with customers. Learning their business (for real) and applying that knowledge to building technology designed to aid and improve the process of doing business.

There's a lot of money riding on the outcome. It's often true that users gripe a lot, but there's no there there. It's expensive to rip out applications and vendors know that. Let 'em whine all they want, they'll never dump the software - that seems to be the prevailing attitude and you can hardly blame them. Unless some key accounts are willing to make a stand, my guess is the status quo will stagger on or progressively get worse.

Users need to show vendors they mean business. But vendors need to realize that while you can buy technology and customer accounts, you can't buy loyalty or relationships, and without those two, it's unlikely you'll build profits or longevity.


Related Reading




Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

InformationWeek encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, InformationWeek moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. InformationWeek further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
T-Shirt Giveaway T-Shirt Giveaway: Each week we're selecting one great comment from our readers. The author of the comment will receive an InformaitonWeek Community t-shirt. So get posting!
Subscribe to RSS

Resource Links