Chris Selland this morning in his blog speaks about the now fabled salesforce.com several hour crash that affected some users and not others. His point is right. Its no big deal unless there is a consistent problem with it - and - to date - there isn't.
I'm going to make a different point. Because I'm really sick and tired of the On Demand communities constantly sniping at each other.
I received an email from Right Now, a company that I normally admire and respect like a great deal - especially their founder - Greg Gianforte - with a note from a person (not Greg) there who I truly like saying "Wondered if you heard anything about this?" and outlining the salesfore.com outage from some article or blog entry on it somewhere. My note back? "I don't care."
This behavior in the On Demand community is constant with most of the companies finding every possible way to demean their competition and making sure that those of us who have some influence hear about it all the damned time. Right Now is not unique to this by any means - only the latest. All of them have done it in one way or the other. One of the most common approaches is "On Demand Company A steals client X from On Demand or On Premise Company D" in the form of a press release. Then you get these "nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah" notes like the one above.
Know what On Demand world. Its time to stop this crap now - at least with me. I truly don't care if you have some gloating piece of information on "you're better than they are because they suck at this."
I think that its about time for the On Demand crowd to recognize they are a major force in the business world now and they have to act like it.
Or maybe they are acting like it.
All I know is that I find the "tactic" of demeaning ones opponent rather than competing on the merits and value of the applications or services or products to the customer dismaying and disgusting.
Bye now. I'm off to my cruise. Thanks for the info - NOT
I can see why you'd say what you have Paul and I can agree in large measure. Internecine snipping is of little value though it is common ammunition in the sales cycle. I've noo doubt this sort of crap will hurt Salesforce.com - at least in the short term.
A number of 'us' and I include myself firmly in that 'us' camp were totally pissed off by the recent Six Apart outtage. It came on top of an earlier outtage of less serious proportions when 'we' were assured the company is doing everything it can.
That's as may well be but when your business gets hosed as a result - 'we' get pretty annoyed. On the other hand, EDS had an outtage that virtually no-one noticed and even fewer discussed. Why? Because they managed the situation well. Six Apart didn't. And for that it got well and truly flayed. By its users and not competitors.
These kinds of thing happen in the fragile online world butit is in the way they are managed that a company is judged. Smooth resolution is the hallmark of a company that's maturing. Sadly a number of hosted solutions are not demonstrating that level of maturity. Yet.
Posted by: Dennis Howlett | December 28, 2005 at 11:06 PM
a) as Chris Selland and I have both said earlier in week Tyeppad and others should consider a more reliable, SLA based outsourced hosting service from MCI, EDS etc
b) having said that there's what I recommend buyers do when there is negative selling - see item b
http://dealarchitect.typepad.com/deal_architect/2005/06/more_salesperso.html
Posted by: Vinnie Mirchandani | December 23, 2005 at 02:55 PM