Now that the 2004 elections are history, one would think the mudslinging, name-calling and negative ads would stop. Instead, it seems that businesses have been inspired by politicians to use these same tactics to scare and intimidate customers. There’s a fair amount of mud and FUD being slung around the IT industry.
The latest flap is between HP and Sun. It seems that Sun COO and President Jonathan Schwartz publishes a blog in which he has expressed some rather negative opinions about HP’s version of Unix. What’s more, Larry Singer, Sun senior vice president and strategic insight officer, has published so-called “reality check” stories in which he publicly questions the outlook for HP’s Unix customers. HP has objected to what it calls Sun’s “misleading and factually incorrect statements.” In a late September letter to Sun, HP insisted that Sun publish a retraction of the statements, along with a public apology. Sun responded that the assertions are personal opinion and are thus perfectly legal.
But the mud flies both ways. Sun says HP belittles the purveyor of Solaris in customer briefings by showing a slide of Sun’s stock price and calling the company “irrelevant” in today’s marketplace. When Sun executives say that this tactic oversteps the bounds of normal business practices, HP executives respond that Sun’s stock price is a matter of public record and there’s no harm in pointing out the stock’s nosedive to customers.
Man, I’m starting to get flashbacks to the recent presidential campaign and the drudging up of 30-year-old military records.
Of course, Bush, Kerry, HP and Sun haven’t cornered the market on injurious insults about their competitors. In attempting to stave off Oracle‘s bid for PeopleSoft, former PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway portrayed Larry Ellison and company as the Evil Empire. It’s no wonder why, since an Oracle executive was found to be gloating over the FUD it created, having written in an e-mail, “We’ve certainly wounded PSFT.. . . Even if we don’t end up closing the deal, this is going to take PSFT time to recover.”
Don’t even get me started about the whole “SCO claims it owns Unix” debacle. That show has gone way beyond insults and innuendoes and has degraded into death threats against SCO CEO Darl McBride.
I’m all for healthy competition, but can’t companies take the high road as they go about their business? Why can’t they emphasize the merits of their offerings without belittling what the other guys offer? Has our country’s standard measure of behavior been lowered so much that it’s now acceptable to try to make yourself look good by making the competitor look bad? Certainly the recent political ads would have us believe this theory.
As a buyer of IT products and services, do you feel good about your vendors when they bad-mouth and denigrate other vendors? Do you want an executive from your hardware or software company pointing out competitors’ frailties?
Years ago, when I was in software sales, I worked with a sales agent who routinely put down our firm’s main competitor. This agent thought the way to make our company’s products shine was to show how the other company’s products reeked. Then that competitor bought our company. And the sales agent had to sell the very products that he had been bad-mouthing for so long. Do you think his customers found him believable when he had to backtrack on his old words? (Take note of this, PeopleSoft. The Evil Empire soon could be your new owner and you’ll have to kiss and make up.)
I’m sure I’m being naïve about how to conduct oneself in an ethical manner, especially when millions or even billions of dollars are on the line. I mean, if the ruler of the free world is elected because he is “the lesser of two evils” in many voters’ eyes, I guess it’s OK to pick your IT vendors that way, too.
