Buyers & Sellers: In the first part of our series, we examined the implications of IT buyers negotiating positions rather than interests. Neglecting to examine seller motivations and organizational structures that may give them an edge. In this installment, we take a look at sales missteps that stem from an ignorance of the organizational pressures … Continued
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IT Infrastructure Services: A little over a month ago, on a hot and sunny day at a coffee shop in Santa Monica, I bumped into Tony Greenberg, CEO of RampRate Sourcing Advisors, as I was waiting for my double espresso. I’ve known Tony from years ago, when I was running marketing for one of the … Continued
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Managed Services RFP Managed Services RFP Harm Suppliers and Buyers Alike As a seller of IT managed services, you may spend hundreds of hours on a quote only to find that you really had no chance because the game was rigged. It can be obvious and heavy handed: The RFP ignores your strengths, but itemizes your competitor’s … Continued
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Google Wrecks the CDN Market Last week Google formally launched its Page Speed Service, the latest in a long line of Content Delivery Network (CDN) services from dozens of suppliers from big and small to hit the market over the last 15 years. In the case of Google though, I see a few novel changes … Continued
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A Cynic Predicts IT and Media in 2011 (Prove me wrong or shut the heck up.) As pondered by Tony Greenberg and Alex Veytsel 1. Everything that’s old will be new again. Last year brought us the return of 3D from the 1950s, cloud (a.k.a. the new and improved mainframe), thin client (the dumb terminals … Continued
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Sourcing Advisor 2011 was a very busy year for us at RampRate. I’ve spent nearly 20 years, on many sides, of the technology business and I enjoy reflecting across large swaths of time to see if there are patterns, lessons, and advice, so let’s see what we get from 2011. Cloud Computing Won’t Whisk Us … Continued
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Buggy Whip Business Who’s in the buggy whip business in technology these days? By that, I mean, what companies are about to become obsolete thanks to major shifts in media delivery and consumption caused by the rise, the serious rise, of streaming? More than a dozen years after the launch of the Streaming Media conference, … Continued
Read more Google as CDN Craig Labovitz, at Arbor Networks, a company that makes packet inspection gear, released a great article about how much traffic Google serves. It has a few key points that the content delivery, content, and telco companies should note: Google is deploying cache servers in ISPs Google generates upwards of 5% of all … Continued
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