Are Vendors Really Moving Toward Open Standards-Based Offerings to End Users?

Tags: asia/pacific, it priorities

There have been multiple acquisitions recently with vendors acquiring complementary or competing products to consolidate their position and offer an integrated solution to end users. Other vendors with limited offerings rely on ecosystems with multiple alliances to position their products as solutions.

Some alliances achieve desired objectives. However, vendors do face execution challenges across geographies. Alliances also pose high risk. For example, the alliance partner that has been acquired may jeopardize joint investments, support to customers, and exploit intellectual property.

Vendors are becoming more critical in selecting partners and are increasingly focusing on the long-term viability of partners. Also, the alliances are gradually becoming strategic partnerships with focus on joint product development and go-to-market activities.

However, despite vendors’ verbal commitments to adopt more standard based open architectures, their integrated systems approach is limiting the openness with select few options to end users.

The benefits of acquisition or strategic alliances may be faster ROI, cost reduction, ease of deployment, among others. However, there is a trade-off with higher risk of being locked-in.

As information technology is becoming strategic and integrated to businesses, end users’ journey with vendors is becoming very critical. End users need to look at “openness” in vendors’ solutions, scalability, viability of product, ROI, cost, long-term support, and diversify their risk well before engaging with them.