FUD Swings Both Ways

Salesmen are an interesting bunch. They have to drink the company kool-aid to enable them to sell with conviction. But what happens when a salesperson starts to waver in that conviction? What happens when they start losing their religion? Fear-based selling! Easy peasy!

Since I noticed that my last post on FUD based selling and Vendor Selection was being used to spread more FUD (with Oracle being the victim this time), I decided to do my part to rid the world of keep-the-client-ignorant tactics and try to put the facts out there. It's interesting how fear always finds a home ("they're too small!" vs "they're too big!")...anyhow, here goes:

• In a solid article by techtarget, Jonathan Penn points out that customers have no need to panic today, and that Oracle will have the resources to support both product lines for a while, noting that it has continued to support the ERP products of both PeopleSoft and JD Edwards following its 2005 acquisition of PeopleSoft.
  
• Instead of spreading fear, let's spread facts - namely regarding Oracle's track record with acquisitions. Siebel hasn't gone away. Also, Oracle now supports multiple app servers with the BEA acquisition. (Someone else may want to chime in on this since I'm not an expert, but remember: facts over fear!)
• Anectodal evidence: a casual conversation with a VP at a financial firm uncovered that in the past years, Oracle has acquired nearly all of their major systems, effectively turning them into an Oracle shop. The result? Fear and mayhem? Not really. In fact, Oracle offered up a free inventory analysis from Oracle Consulting to guide the client to maximize their existing software investment and determine how they might benefit from updates resulting in tighter integration between systems (although the client stated he would have opted for a deal on maintenance).

That's my $.02, and I hope it moves the conversation away from fear and closer to the facts. And although I know I didn't cover all the facts and I welcome folks to chime in with their side, the point should NOT be boutique vs. large vendor, large vs. small, red vs. twitter blue, but simply the product's capabilities to "scratch your itch", as Dave Kearns put it. Remember this, young salesman: Sell your product, not fear, for FUD is the path to the dark side. FUD leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

A Story About Vendor Selection and FUD

The shocking (at least to me) story of Oracle acquiring Sun yesterday made me think about an experience I had helping a client in the vendor selection process late last year.

The client was seeking an identity solution, and with our help, reduced the vendors to Sun, another large vendor and a small boutique vendor. After their demos/POCs, the vendor scoring matrix we helped them put together showed that the boutique vendor actually ended up with the highest score.

After some great FUD work from the sales folk, the client decided to add a new metric in the matrix for Company Viability. All of a sudden, Sun came out on top...and the solution was purchased and implemented. The whole reason the boutique vendor lost out was because of fear and the likeliness of acquisition or failure, etc.

A few months later...Sun is on the block, and finally inks a deal. Now I'm hearing that the client is worried about the direction of the Sun product line post-acquisition, because of the heavy overlap between the Sun and Oracle product lines. (And also worried about what Oracle will do to Sun's open source initiatives.)

Now the smaller vendors are having their say (and they should). Here is an interesting perspective from a Network World article:

"Figuring out what stays, what goes, and integrating the remaining pieces is going to be an enormous task that will undoubtedly create consequences for deployed customers," says Andre Duran, CEO of Ping Identity, which develops identity federation software. "This is yet one more reason companies should consider standards-based, loosely coupled approaches, as it insulates them from the potential for single vendor lock-in, which is occurring irrespective of how they are selecting their vendors."
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Blakley says as the deal closes, Oracle management likely won't address identity until the more compelling strategies, such as the database, are worked out. "So there will be a period where not much happens and it is business as usual."

Identity Management's Business Prowess

It's refreshing to see the strength of the Identity market in the following excerpts. The first is an analysis on Oracle stock by Rob Black. The second is a quote from Sun's CEO, Jonathan Schwartz:

Rob Black submits: Expect an in-line Oracle (ORCL) quarter in a historically difficult period. Expect to see growth from all product segments across all geographies, with better contribution from Europe than reported in recent periods. Analysts believe Fusion Middleware focus and growth will continue for the foreseeable future, highlighted by strength in Identity Management opportunities. Analysts are increasing our price target for ORCL to $19 from $17 based on our revised DCF, which includes a reduced discount rate (due to reduced risk free rate) and increased confidence in a more promising cash flow growth scenario.

Growth to Oracle is ultimately attributed to Identity. Now that is pretty big stuff. The entire company stock is expected to go from 17 to 19 ultimately driven by an upswing in identity sales. Just to put this into perspective, this is a company that could bankroll buying Peoplesoft at $10B and Siebel at almost $6B. In the past year or so, it has picked up some dinosaurs in the Identity world: Octetstring, Thor and Oblix.
The second quote is from Sun CEO:

"As a CEO, nothing is more important to me than security and identity management," Schwartz said. "It's the heart of SOX, HIPAA and other regulations across the world. Who has access to what information often closely relates to who pays for that information and who's liable for that information."

That's a wonderful shout-out for identity. Given that the quote was taken in an interview Schwartz gave in relation to Sun's tight relationship with Accenture (and how they really need Accenture as a consulting arm to compete with IBMs Global Services division) - nonetheless - I'll take it! If that were the case, it would speak to the strength of the services market for Identity - which in turn speaks to the software market as well. Either way, it's a good sign for things to come.