June 30, 2006

7 Problems of IT Professionals

IT Professionals (resellers, vendors, etc) help small businesses in so many ways, some of them also cause many problems by not really serving the needs of their customers.

Kim J. Brand, Founder and Managing Partner of Server Partners, LLC, in Indianapolis, Indiana, which features the FileEngine file server product line and other IT services writes about the solution on LinuxPlanet.

He writes The incentives in the server OS reseller arrangement are wrong for the customer. Basically, the reseller is motivated to sell and service a product that requires constant maintenance. The customer has (until now) had no alternative but to pay high prices for blocks of time and subscription-based (use it or lose it) support... even higher prices for ad-hoc service.

Customers feel abused by license agreements. They don't understand why a server that serves two dozen users costs more than a server that handles a dozen users. Logic dictates that the cost to manufacture the software is the same--after all the manufacturer isn't supporting it. Furthermore, the license terms they are compelled to accept give the publisher broad rights to audit their use of the software while obligating the maker to few (if any) warranty commitments.

Read the full article here. I found Kim's comments echoing the frustration Scott Wolpow, CEO of PublicCTO (a small business technology solution provider) has with many of his peers in the industry as well.

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