Sales Insight

 
 
By Lisa Vaas  |  Posted 2004-06-07 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Hamerman had some other good suggestions for what we should pay attention to in the trial. In general, customers will be able to garner valuable insight into software sales tactics, which will be revealed to some extent in this trial. For example, theres been a good amount of sales documentation gathered regarding Oracles habit of offering steep discounts to customers, particularly when those customers are favoring other vendors. That will certainly be of interest to customers who are in the process of buying software, Hamerman noted. There also will be a slew of case studies offered during the trial. Also on the stand will be systems integrators. Theres bound to be loads of useful information about the experiences customers have had in selecting and deploying complex applications, Hamerman suggested.
In the end, will the trials outcome matter? If the DOJ wins, it wont eliminate industry consolidation. As eWEEKs Ferguson pointed out in the article I referenced earlier, damage has already been done in the form of PeopleSoft personnel whove been diverted so as to fight the lawsuit, as well as lost J.D. Edwards staffers.
But regardless of the outcome, the process, as were already witnessing, is going to provide us all with a wealth of information that you can put to use in purchasing decisions and sales negotiations. So, whatever you do, dont change that dial—stay tuned to the Oracle trial. Please register for TalkBack below and tell me and other readers what you think, or write to me at lisa_vaas@comcast.net. eWEEK.com Associate Editor Lisa Vaas has written about enterprise applications since 1997. Check out eWEEK.coms Database Center at http://database.eweek.com for the latest database news, reviews and analysis.

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Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. Since 1995, she has also been a Webcast news show anchorperson and a reporter covering the IT industry. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection. Prior to becoming a journalist, Vaas experienced an array of eye-opening careers, including driving a cab in Boston, photographing cranky babies in shopping malls, selling cameras, typography and computer training. She stopped a hair short of finishing an M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College. She runs two open-mic reading series in Boston and currently keeps bees in her home in Mashpee, Mass.
 
 
 
 
 
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