Blogger: Guy Creese
Bill Pray and I had a briefing last week with a vendor who sells both IBM and Microsoft solutions, and he made a comment that crystallized a belief I've had for a long while: that Microsoft's aggressive product marketing (and IBM's minimal product marketing) make a difference in terms of readiness to buy.
Unsolicited, he said, "You know, it's interesting. On about 40% of the calls we get from people who eventually buy a Microsoft product, they instantly know what they want--and they tell us specifically. 'OK, we need 80 copies of Microsoft X, 25 copies of Microsoft Y, etc.' However, no IBM customer ever specifically asks for an IBM product. We'll do a demo based on their stated needs, and they'll say, 'Wow. What product is this? This is pretty cool. What do you call it? Hmm, never heard of it.'"
Once again, a data point making the case that while IBM's product offerings are well understood by its installed base, they aren't known outside of IBM's inner circle. IBM needs to get out more.
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