I find IT vendors of all sorts – and primarily the sales folks – to be a rung above or below car salesmen. I understand their purpose, their motivations, and why every conversation happens over coffee, drinks or lobster. The way I see it, as seedy their business is, the real travesty is the market of gullible companies that lap it up without thorough investigation of facts. Anyone who’s worked in an IT firm where everyone had to suffer with some gargantuan POS enterprise application that begs the question “Why would anyone ever build this monstrosity let alone buy it?!” is familiar with how these types of vendor conversations must go. Wining, dining, and then the purchasing firm is left violated, damaged and in denial over what happened.
SO what I’m saying is bad enterprise applications are kind of like date rape. Terrible comparison, I know. But any lighter comparison feels inadequate.