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Blog: Craig Schiff« Aren't Things Confusing Enough Already? | Main Decision TimeMost of the newly merged vendors have now stepped up to the plate and made the tough decisions they needed to about people and products. This has resulted in removal of staff redundancies, restructurings that have caused additional staff to consider new opportunities, and sunsetting of several products. While it is impressive that the vendors have made the tough decisions (in spite of earlier protestations that nothing will change), it now comes down to execution. Can they keep current customers happy and maintain sales momentum as they shuffle personnel around and drop certain products? More importantly, what exactly will they be selling during this planned 12-24 month transitionary period and how often will customers be required to upgrade to new interim versions? While its great to have a roadmap that depicts an all-encompassing fully integrated performance management solution that should be available during our lifetimes, you can only sell what works today. That may be hard to do when you have already sounded the death knell for some components and others are not yet integrated. For customers and prospects that do buy in to the grand vision, what will happen as each new and improved version is released? Since fundamental architectural changes are being made, not just minor enhancements, will they have to be in a constant upgrade mode to maintain support? What I guess all of this means is that while the vendors have already made their decisions, even tougher decisions lie ahead for customers and prospects. If your product is put on life support and you will eventually have to transition to a new product do you stick with your current vendor or do you open up your search to the market at large? If you haven't yet purchased a solution do you sit on the sidelines until your preferred vendor delivers on their roadmap vision, do you buy in today knowing there will be bumps along the way, or do you look at alternative vendors who don't have the same post-merger challenges (at least not today)? The answers of course will vary by company situation, but in all cases these decisions will be tough and should not be made hastily.
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Comments
Craig -- You bring up excellent points. I have only half-jokingly written in my own blog that for the traditional BI vendors, in 2008 and 2009 the acronym "BI" will now stand for "Bloated Integration."
You point out one of the main issues with these acquisitions -- as the architectures change underneath, customers will need to upgrade their solutions. That's a painful process, and as long as they're going to have to go through a painful upgrade, they might as well look at other options in the market.
This creates a great opportunity for the newer, more innovative BI players to shine. So, I believe you'll see a lot of innovation coming from the newer players. And, one of the reasons that I'm such a big proponent of BI as an on-demand / SaaS service is that the upgrades are handled by the vendor, not the customer, so one of the key problems you identified is addressed.
Posted by: Ken Rudin | March 7, 2008 7:38 PM