As we find ourselves at about the halfway mark in a summerlong process of pounding on vendors to fill out our technically meticulous product surveys that drive the Network World Buyer’s Guides, I can’t help but conjure up the image of that pink Eveready Energizer bunny with the beating drum.
It just keeps going and going and going . . . .
But, you see, that is the simple point here. These Buyer’s Guides, were not built to represent a single snapshot in time for a particular market segment. Rather, we’ve constructed them – with the help of the underlying collection engine provided by our partner, mBlast – to last as an adaptable tool for pinpointing products that our readers need to know about, when they need to know about them.
Yes, we have to push vendors hard to supply us with an initial set of completed product surveys, so that we have the detailed information in hand for the actual launch of any guide we publish. In June, we collected more than 500 product listings from 300 vendors for the Security Buyer’s Guide. Last week we published the Wireless Security Guide with more than 150 listings from 70 players. And today, we launched the Storage Buyer’s Guide with close to 200 products listed from half as many vendors.
The WAN/LAN Management Buyer’s Guide hits on Aug. 31, followed by the Convergence Buyer’s Guide on Sept. 16, the Network Infrastructure Buyer’s Guide on Oct. 6 and the Network Applications Guide on Oct. 31.
But these launch dates are just that, arbitrary starting points. Once any Network World Buyer’s Guide goes live on www.nww.com, the process is far from complete. Vendors already involved with the process are permitted at any time after the launch to go into the system and modify their existing entries to reflect upgrades, revise feature implementations and list new additions to their product lines. Likewise, vendors who’ve not yet answered our call for products can register with the mBlast system and add information about their wares to any appropriate Buyer’s Guides at any time. (Vendors, the gateway to this process is here.)
In addition to helping the guides to grow vertically by adding more products in existing categories, we plan to expand this project horizontally, adding new categories as future product niches avail themselves and vendors produce wares to fill them. If you’ve got a product category that deserves a Buyer’s Guide, contact me at cburns@nww.com.
We plan to outlast the bunny in an effort to make these Buyer’s Guides the most convenient, one-stop shop for network product research.
