The tug of war game which never ends...

My last blog was about the never ending bashing war between software vendors, this one is about the never ending tug of war between different networking vendors. I work at one of the biggest Cisco resellers worldwide, we are part of a larger company which sells Juniper, Riverbed, IBM, F5 and all other big networking
products.

As soon one of those other vendors gives us a seminar, we know that next week one of the other vendors will give a seminar as well just to bash the competition and tell us why to choose them. You would think you are in a luxurious position eh? Vendors fighting for you, so you will advice customers their products. Well… It isn’t…

Ever heard the story about the house where the Plummer lives? All water pipes leak there. Well this is with a hardware reseller as well. We are not even able to get the best hardware for our own, even while we advice others what’s best to get.

Why? Well as soon we buy hardware from vendor A, vendor B and C will start a war about why we got hardware from their competitor, this will only end in the never ending tug of war game, and it does have consequences in a lot of cases!

So its best to focus for one main brand, that’s what we did and we became Cisco’s worldwide biggest resellers and got very close ties with them, but as soon you start selling some Riverbed..BAM!Cisco Seminars! I do have to give credits to Cisco though, other then all other vendors they always make seminars with Cisco facts, and
they refuse to bash the competition, while all others love to bash how much better they are then Cisco.

So back to my goal of this blog, what makes you choose for one vendor? They all will invest money and effort to make you think “their” brand is the best. They will all give you reports from Forrester and Gartner about their results, whether this has a X at feature A, while the other vendor doesn’t. Do you choose for price, reputation, features, service, products? All of these are things to consider. But with all those vendors playing tug of war WITH YOU, can you still get your mind clear, line up all plus and minus and make the right decision?

I shall be honest, for me reputation is a big thing to look at! I mean, it’s a huge difference whether Cisco Engineers walk into a building or a Vendor A engineer. A lot of people look at those people like they ARE THE ONES. And well, why shouldn’t they? It’s the same with Microsoft, HP. IBM, Apple and all others. They earned their spot with both innovating technology and smart sales tactics.

But ignoring that, would you go for prices? I mean Cisco is expensive, but you do get 1500 TAC engineers working for you if you have a smartnet, Juniper could be cheaper, but what if its get broken?

My question to all who read this blog, think about it: What would make you choose for a vendor, what would you look for, and what would be the right decision for you? They shall always play tug of war about you, and you will be under pressure from both customers as vendors.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer: You got to love the game tug of war.