Delivering fearless advice since 2001. Here's our story
What Real Independence means. Find Out
Alan Pelz-Sharpe
5-Sep-2007
While nattering to a U.S. attorney while traveling back from Kuala Lumpur last week I was directed to this ongoing story. You can read all about it here, but in short the U.S. Department of Justice is suing Accenture for allegedly receiving kickback-like payments from technology suppliers it recommended and/or implemented at DOJ. The alleged fraud was a collusion with big-name IT suppliers (e.g., HP, Sun) and smaller vendors (e.g., Vignette) to defraud the Government.
The relationships between consultancies (especially big systems integrators), vendors, and buyers has always been murky. In this industry it is common to see an expensive product selection phase of a project (undertaken by a systems integrator) ending up with a recommendation of the system integrator's favorite vendor partner. To be sure, sometimes this is because the consultancy knows that tool the best, and in the end, a good partnership between software supplier and implementer can be critical to project success.
But as Matthew Clapp pointed out several years ago in these pages, very often money changes hands (from vendor to consultant), and that will affect selection decisions for sure. Says Clapp, "In fact, my experience found that more times than not, the Big 5 partner already knew exactly which CMS solution she was going to pitch before she walked through the client's door."
It is also a common lament of vendors who do not wield the clout of the major systems integrators (SIs) that SIs will not even meet with them to review their product offerings. At a time when customers are clamoring for simpler solutions across the board, non-enterprisey vendors often cannot get so much as a toe in the door.
What has this to do with ECM? Simple, be careful where you obtain your product selection advice. Make sure it is independent, and think twice about paying firms (SI, Consultancy, or Analyst) with relationships to particular vendors to provide you with "independent advice."
Document Management (ECM) Evaluation Stream looks at... Vignette's ECM Suite usability concerns
"Assessing usability for the Vignette V7 ECM Suite is difficult as there are multiple different modules, each with a different look and feel, the result of technologies coming from acquisitions and separate development teams subsequently. ..."
(p. 229)
Learn the real strengths and weaknesses of major vendors from around the world, in our evaluation research stream.
Tags: Document Management (ECM), Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, , OpenText ECM Suite, Government
"Every organisation considering portal technology should obtain a copy of the Enterprise Portals Research, to gain access to best-practice approaches and concepts, built up from real-world experience."
James Robertson, Managing Director, Step Two Designs
Get the Real Story bi-weekly.
USA & Canada
+1 800 325 6190
UK
+44 (0) 20 3318 1911
International
+1 617 340 6464
All Other Inquiries
Copyright Real Story Group 2001 - 2013. All rights reserved.
All analyst firms claim to be independent or vendor-neutral. We're different.
Get the real story on commercial and open source tools from a firm that works only for you, the technology customer.
Thank you for signing up for The Real Story Group Newsletter. You will receive our monthly newsletter, plus updates with new information on the technology streams you have expressed interest in below.