| |
| |
|
softwarecatch.com
|
|
|
|
15 Questions to Ask Your Software Vendor
When making a decision to buy any piece of software there are a number of criteria typically evaluated. One of the most important elements in the decision process is the strength of the company that builds the software. In fact a survey of 19,000 customers has identified that company strength is the most important factor in choosing software, with the price of the software being the fifth most important element. In evaluating a company's strength I would suggest you ask the following 15 questions, the answers to which will provide invaluable information in determining the viability of the company, their processes and their commitment to the product you are reviewing. 1. How long have you been in business? 2. When was you last upgrade released? When is the next one planned? 3. What's involved in doing an upgrade? a. Can your customer's do it? 4. Are manuals available for the software? 5. Does the software update cost include phone based tech support? 6. What percentage of customers are current with their annual support contract? 7. Where is the product heading? Technology/Functionality? When do you plan to get their? 8. When did you last put your prices up? 9. Are you planning for the next realease of Windows yet? 10. Can i build my own reports? 11. Why did you choose your current development platform? 12. What does it cost to have someone come onsite a fix a problem? 13. Who does the training, are there scheduled courses? 14. Can i talk to a customer who implemented in the last 6 months? 15. How much have you spent on research and development in the last 12 months? Importantly there is no right or wrong answer to these questions, and the answers may vary greatly from one vendor to another. There are however some answers that should throw up a red flag: Question 6 - This is generally a good guage of customer satisfaction. If the vendor can not provide this information, or is not willing to do so then you can anticipate a support issue or poor customer satisfaction with the product. Question 10 - You should always have the ability to get to your own data. If you require a programmer to build new reports then you will consistently be biting into your ROI. Question 14 - If the vendor skirts around this issue then they are uncomfortable letting you talk to a recent customer and therefore maybe hiding something from you, perhaps a difficiency in their product or in their implementation process. Question 15 - The answer to this question identifies how 'productised' the software is. A vendor who regularly evaluates their customer's future requirements and spends money on building these into their product is committed to it's current customers. A vendor who spends money only 'as required' is probably not so committed to building a great product as they are to getting sales. When getting answers to these questions please also consider that their may be legitmate commercial reasons as to why a question can not be answered, however at a bear minimum your vendor should be able to provide some background into their reasons for not answering. There are another four important criteria upon which any experienced buyer will evaluate a software purchase which will be covered in future articles. Jay McCormack has had years of experience in the web and software industry. Most recently he launched http://www.cheaperit.com where he reviews and recommends the best software found on the web.
MORE RESOURCES:
Quest Software's Shares Changing Hands at Higher Prices on 1.2x Above-Average ... - Comtex Smartrend
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Is Your Small Business Ready For A CRM Software Solution? I have yet to see a business that, sometimes in spite of themselves, didn't benefit from implementing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or a simpler Contact Management software solution.Your small business might be the rare exception, but if you can relate to some of the following scenarios, you may be ready to take advantage of the improved and inexpensive CRM systems coming on-stream. Microsoft Great Plains: Customization Upgrade & Recovery - Visual Studio VB 6.0 Microsoft Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics, eEnterprise has very long, about 12 years customization & integration history. In earlier 1990th - the customization tool was mostly Great Plains Dexterity, later on when Great Plains was successfully moved to MS SQL Server 6. The Secret of the Layer Styles Dialogue When you double-click a layer in the Layer Palette, you will access the Layer Style dialogue box. Here, you can set many eye-catching layer styles such as Bevel & Emboss, Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, etc. eConnect: eCommerce Development for Microsoft Great Plains Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has several options to enable web ordering. Traditionally Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise had eOrder - this is ASP pages based ordering application, enabling you to place or retrieve your Sales Order Processing (SOP) Sales Orders over the web. Instant Messenger Clients If you have been using the Internet for any amount of time you have probably used an instant messenger at some time or another. They allow you to talk to your friends, family and co-workers with the click of a button. Easy Guide to RAID Recovery What is RAID RECOVERY?RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. It is a method of combining several hard drives into one unit. Groupware and Online Collaboration: Collaboration Series #4 This article is the fourth of a series of articles exploring specific aspects of groupware. The brief informational articles in this series discuss some of the technologies associated with groupware, as well as some of the characteristics of groupware. Antivirus Software - Get The Bugs Before They Get You! You turn on your computer, and it doesn't look quite right. Maybe your icons have changed, or the background picture is wrong. Best Practices In Choosing Network Monitoring Software Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Hawaii (HMSA) found itself with a rapidly expanding network and data center. Our network devices, servers, and software were all growing in complexity and we knew that we would have to leverage technology to gain better control of our IT systems and network. Microsoft CRM Development Microsoft CRM is CRM answer from Microsoft Business Solutions.The whole conception behind CRM seems to be different. OSI Layers Model IntroductionDuring the early years of our modern computer era, very few standards and protocols existed between various manufacturers. However, as time went on and computer technology continued to improve and become more widespread, it became apparent that standards would be necessary to ensure compatibility. OLAP, An Alternative Technology Over Spreadsheets Are Spreadsheets Robbing your Enterprise of Competitive Advantage?'90% of "average" companies are not confident that their forecasts and reports are accurate and reliable'In a recent study, 81% of FD's cited that their highest priority is the accuracy of revenue and earnings forecasts while 63% complained of inadequate budgeting and forecasting systems .The modern FD is coming under increasing pressure from all sides to produce more robust, meaningful and accurate financial information. Run Your Own Search Engine Our hosted solution allow you to run your own search engine.You can have your own special search engine such as travel, games,animals, medical, software, sports, music, cars or any other category you like. Microsoft Great Plains Implementation: Verticals - Wholesale Order Entry center - overview Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has substantial market share and strong support by Microsoft on the US market. Currently we see the trend in the vertical markets when companies with custom-built accounting application, usually written on legacy platform are switching to standard and proven ERP solution and customize or tailor it to fit their vertical market requirements. Microsoft CRM Integration & Customization: SharePoint Document Gateway MS CRM is very close to document workflow automation, including Microsoft Office documents: Words, Excel, etc. The document workflow was perfectly automated about 10 years ago in Lotus Notes Domino. Microsoft CRM Integration with IBM Lotus Notes Domino - Machinery Dealership Example IBM Lotus Notes with Domino email server is traditional document workflow management solution for large corporate business, where you need audit trail on approval cycle and decision making. Microsoft Business Solutions CRM is very cost efficient solution to automate sales process. Reduce Pop-ups and Annoying Ads There is many things more frustrating than surfing a website only to have your screen suddenly full of pop-up advertising or a cascade of new windows opening. There are so many intrusive kinds of advertising on websites that there must be a way to deal with them. Software Piracy - Global Increase Pirated software is on the increase and now accounts for over one third of the software installed on the world's computers and it's cost the software industry a staggering, $28bn (£12bn) last year in lost revenues. That's the startling claim of the UK based, Business Software Alliance. Great Plains Accounting Migration to Microsoft Great Plains - Overview for IT Specialist This is a short article, written in question/answer/FAQ style to give IT Specialist/developer/programmer balanced top level information on Great Plains Accounting migration to Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains. If you have Great Plains Accounting as main accounting and ERP system you need to know some technical details on the migration to Great Plains and what is going on behind the scenes. Configure Windows Indexing Service for Performance The Windows Indexing Service provides you with the ability to perform advanced searches on directories located on your computer and on shared directories on the network. The Indexing Service was introduced with IIS (Internet Information Services) and is now installed with Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
|
|
Powered By: Free Work At Home Business Opportunity! |
| © 2006 |
