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Breaking Down Vendor Strategy In New Markets: Page 2 of 2

OEM relationships are certainly easier for the manufacturer to
terminate than if they
had bought something or built it themselves. Depending on the
manufacturer, the OEM this might leave the customer in a
difficult situation when this happens. This also happens when the OEM is bought by a
competitor. It may be very difficult for the
manufacturer that originally supplied the product to continue to support
it. The new purchaser of the OEM may want to use their influence to move customers to their other products, which can get ugly.

Reselling a product is the option that concerns me the least.
Manufacturers have lists of products they can provide you that either
enhance their current solution or give you more product to buy
from them. Upfront, you know that the relationship is one of convenience.
For example a provider of SAN storage
also providing the SAN switches and HBAs. What is really strange is when
a manufacturer resells a product that has really nothing to do with its
current product offering, which is even more humorous is when it competes with
one of their own products.

We see this reselling of a competing product problem right now in solid
state storage. As we detail in "SSD in Legacy Storage Systems," some legacy storage systems struggle with integrating SSD and getting
the maximum performance out of the technology. Interestingly, many of the
manufacturers have one or several alternate solid state storage systems
to offer in case their legacy systems don't hold up. While these resell something better, situations have made for interesting
meetings with the customer. My concern is what happens when the alternative is
not presented to the customer. Certainly the assumption would be that
moving to a resale product would be an act of last resort, but maybe it
shouldn't be.

At the end of the day, it is really up to the user to understand what
value the manufacturer is bringing to any of these situations. Always
look at the alternatives. In the resell and OEM cases, try to speak
directly to the original supplier without the manufacturer in the room.
Most importantly, know what you are going to do if one of these relationships
fizzles out.