Demonstration Post-Mortem: Why Vendors Lose Deals
Steve McVey - July 2, 2003

Introduction

Large software vendors seem to have many advantages over smaller vendors. Vast financial resources allow them to develop and market a slew of complementary applications (either from integrated suites or through extensive partnering), leverage well-trained consultants for implementations, and deliver global support services 24 hours a day. Smaller vendors are often relegated to a narrow industry or functional niche, have fewer alliances, and are severely limited by geography. The Internet has leveled the playing field somewhat in building brand awareness, but the big vendors win here as well by virtue of larger advertising budgets. In business as usual, these shortcomings give smaller software companies little hope of outdistancing their larger adversaries...