A recent survey of Fortune 1000 companies by TheInfoPro found widespread user dissatisfaction with vendor technical support.
While the number and complexity of storage products has grown, vendor service levels have been steadily falling over the last few years, according to extensive interviews of Fortune 1000 storage professionals conducted by TheInfoPro Inc., a New York City-based independent research network. "We have seen a drop in some of our vendors' willingness to understand our business," says Wendy Betts, distributed systems storage manager at Hewitt Associates LLC, a global human resources outsourcing and services company in Lincolnshire, IL.
TheInfoPro's latest survey attributed the drop in vendor service levels to the following:
- Increased product complexity that requires greater knowledge and expertise.
- Vendor alliances and mergers that initially result in less-integrated solutions and less-knowledgeable support staffs.
- The convergence of storage, security and networking increases the number of professionals involved in delivering and supporting a product or service.
- Competitive pressure among vendors creates higher technical support force turnover.
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This was first published in May 2006