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A New Way to Buy Application Performance Management Solutions

How Social Networking and User Reviews are Revolutionizing the APM Buying Process

“All of the APM vendors sound the same.”

“Your competitor claims to offer all of the same features you just mentioned.”

“How do I know what you are selling is really special?”

Sound familiar?

If you an IT professional researching APM solutions, you've probably said these words yourself. And it's no surprise – the APM market is a highly competitive market with a full 27 vendors included in the latest Gartner APM magic quadrant report.

In my experience working for two leading APM vendors in the market, I've spoken with a lot of people from IT that find it difficult to differentiate among the plethora of APM vendors. They tell me they can't put 100% trust in the white papers, presentations, and case studies they read because they all say that the product can do everything for everyone. And so they can't really understand which vendors are best suited to their particular needs and use cases.

What IT managers really want is:

- Unbiased information from real users (not just the “showcase customers”)

- Direct access to others who have already gone through the selection process

- An easy way to create a vendor short list

After years of hearing this need, I recently founded a B2B social networking site for IT professionals to enable them to research and share information about application performance management and other enterprise IT products and services.

Online user reviews have completely changed the way we make buying decisions as consumers. We now use ratings and review sites to see what other real users think before we buy electronics, book a hotel, visit a doctor or choose a restaurant.

We've decided to take the success of B2C social networking and review sites and apply them to the market for APM and other enterprise IT products - meaning to provide IT professionals with a community platform to share reviews and connect with each other to make the best buying decision.

However, a review site for IT products has different requirements than a review site for consumer products – for instance, we've found that IT professionals would like to post their reviews anonymously so that their identity is not revealed. They also want a way to contact other reviewers using private messaging in order to enable direct access between real users from different companies.

The New APM Buying Process

The buying process for enterprise IT products has changed dramatically, with technology buyers doing much more research about products over the web, and creating a vendor short list, before they even start talking to vendors.

According to Forrester Research, “Tech buyers are using web and community resources to complete nearly 70% of their buying journey before they ever engage with a sales resource.” (Source: Forrester report “Catching Up To Tech Customer Communities” October 2011). The most valuable online resource for IT buyers is access to the experience and opinions of other real users in order to get unbiased, relevant information.

However, the concept of a product review site for enterprise products and raises some important questions:

How does the site assure that the reviews are authentic?

Do user reviews accurately reflect judgments by professional experts?

If you work in IT and are evaluating APM solutions, the value of a site with APM reviews is obvious, including an easy way to create a vendor short list, unbiased information from real users, and direct access to others who have already gone through the selection process.

If you are already a user of an APM solution, you can use a review site to speak out freely in a private and anonymous environment. You can evangelize products, provide suggestions for improvements, share war stories, or show your thought leadership, all while preserving your privacy since no personally identifiable information is made public.

IT Central Station was recently launched as a private beta at www.itcentralstation.com. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts about the site and how you would like to get involved.

Click here to contact Russell Rothstein

ABOUT Russell Rothstein

Russell Rothstein is founder and CEO of IT Central Station. Previously he was VP Product Marketing at OpTier and AVP Product Marketing at OPNET Technologies. He has also written several articles and blogs on APMdigest.

Related Links:

12 Ways to Gain Faster ROI from APM

How the End-User Experience Impacts Your Bottom Line

The Top 5 Advantages of SaaS-based APM

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A New Way to Buy Application Performance Management Solutions

How Social Networking and User Reviews are Revolutionizing the APM Buying Process

“All of the APM vendors sound the same.”

“Your competitor claims to offer all of the same features you just mentioned.”

“How do I know what you are selling is really special?”

Sound familiar?

If you an IT professional researching APM solutions, you've probably said these words yourself. And it's no surprise – the APM market is a highly competitive market with a full 27 vendors included in the latest Gartner APM magic quadrant report.

In my experience working for two leading APM vendors in the market, I've spoken with a lot of people from IT that find it difficult to differentiate among the plethora of APM vendors. They tell me they can't put 100% trust in the white papers, presentations, and case studies they read because they all say that the product can do everything for everyone. And so they can't really understand which vendors are best suited to their particular needs and use cases.

What IT managers really want is:

- Unbiased information from real users (not just the “showcase customers”)

- Direct access to others who have already gone through the selection process

- An easy way to create a vendor short list

After years of hearing this need, I recently founded a B2B social networking site for IT professionals to enable them to research and share information about application performance management and other enterprise IT products and services.

Online user reviews have completely changed the way we make buying decisions as consumers. We now use ratings and review sites to see what other real users think before we buy electronics, book a hotel, visit a doctor or choose a restaurant.

We've decided to take the success of B2C social networking and review sites and apply them to the market for APM and other enterprise IT products - meaning to provide IT professionals with a community platform to share reviews and connect with each other to make the best buying decision.

However, a review site for IT products has different requirements than a review site for consumer products – for instance, we've found that IT professionals would like to post their reviews anonymously so that their identity is not revealed. They also want a way to contact other reviewers using private messaging in order to enable direct access between real users from different companies.

The New APM Buying Process

The buying process for enterprise IT products has changed dramatically, with technology buyers doing much more research about products over the web, and creating a vendor short list, before they even start talking to vendors.

According to Forrester Research, “Tech buyers are using web and community resources to complete nearly 70% of their buying journey before they ever engage with a sales resource.” (Source: Forrester report “Catching Up To Tech Customer Communities” October 2011). The most valuable online resource for IT buyers is access to the experience and opinions of other real users in order to get unbiased, relevant information.

However, the concept of a product review site for enterprise products and raises some important questions:

How does the site assure that the reviews are authentic?

Do user reviews accurately reflect judgments by professional experts?

If you work in IT and are evaluating APM solutions, the value of a site with APM reviews is obvious, including an easy way to create a vendor short list, unbiased information from real users, and direct access to others who have already gone through the selection process.

If you are already a user of an APM solution, you can use a review site to speak out freely in a private and anonymous environment. You can evangelize products, provide suggestions for improvements, share war stories, or show your thought leadership, all while preserving your privacy since no personally identifiable information is made public.

IT Central Station was recently launched as a private beta at www.itcentralstation.com. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts about the site and how you would like to get involved.

Click here to contact Russell Rothstein

ABOUT Russell Rothstein

Russell Rothstein is founder and CEO of IT Central Station. Previously he was VP Product Marketing at OpTier and AVP Product Marketing at OPNET Technologies. He has also written several articles and blogs on APMdigest.

Related Links:

12 Ways to Gain Faster ROI from APM

How the End-User Experience Impacts Your Bottom Line

The Top 5 Advantages of SaaS-based APM

Hot Topics

The Latest

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 5 covers the infrastructure and hardware supporting AI ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 4 covers advancements in AI technology ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 3 covers AI's impact on employees and their roles ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 2 covers the challenges presented by AI, as well as solutions to those problems ...

In the final part of APMdigest's 2025 Predictions Series, industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025 ...

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

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The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

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The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

Image
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Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...