Note to Vendors

We are asked regularly by the vendor community how to become part of our detailed evaluation research. The Real Story Group evaluates nearly 200 products, so new tools added to our list usually need to "bump" an incumbent. As a general rule, we only cover vendors and open source projects that are likely to appear on the short lists of our enterprise customers, rather than newly-developed offerings.

In short, you need to become well known, then we will evaluate you.

Well known typically means:

  • Vendor has been in business at least six years
  • Tool has gone through several major releases
  • Customer base spans multiple countries (ideally multiple continents) and numerous industry verticals
  • Vendor is fundamentally a software company and not primarily a services firm
  • Open source projects must demonstrate sufficient maturity, such as outside investment for commercial sponsors, or multi-firm governance structures for community-based projects

The Real Story Group does not accept traditional vendor briefings like some other analyst firms. We do participate in demos with vendors we cover regularly, when undertaking a specific product evaluation. Otherwise, we focus our efforts around the end user community – where we solicit feedback on what they’re seeing and experiencing within the technology segments we cover.

To make us aware of your offering, write to vendorlist@realstorygroup.com, with a short description of how your offering addresses all of the bullets above.