Negotiation leverage:
　　It’s on your side with startups
　　Mitigation and product functionality issues aside, there is another good reason to work with startup vendors: it’s much easier to get your way with smaller companies hungry for your business. Smaller vendors have less layers of corporate infrastructure, and many times you are in direct communication with the individu

als responsible for the functionality of your implementation. In this way, it’s easier to get your voice heard on features or bug fixes. Don’t like the way something works or want a new feature? Pick up the phone and talk directly to the product or development managers, or even the CTO. Perhaps you’ll get a fix the same day or within a very short timeframe. Try that with one of the super-vendors.

 
　　Smaller companies are more eager to negotiate, especially if you are a large enterprise that could be a marquee name for them.

　　It’s also easier to negotiate on price. While large vendors might be able to discount or cut the price on one of their offerings so they can make another one sweeter, the realities of large sales forces and commission structures requires them to keep their products at a certain (increasingly higher) price point. Smaller companies are more eager to negotiate, especially if you are a large enterprise that could be a marquee name for them.

　　Finally, it’s easier to get help with your specific implementation from startup companies. Many enterprise software startup companies know that their products are not plug-and-play and require some additional effort and expense to set them up. As a result, many startups have professional services arms whose goals are not to drive revenue for the company, but rather to support the products in customer installations.

　　Unless the startup vendor charges for this additional service (and we regularly counsel them not to), you should consider this to be free consulting and professional services help. Use as much of this as possible, and even negotiate more into your contract. It is in yours and the startup’s best interests to make sure you get the value you require from your investment.

　　The ZapThink take

　　As you can see from the past few ZapFlashes, ZapThink is very concerned that the rapid consolidation and maturation of the enterprise IT landscape will have a negative outcome on innovation in the marketplace. We believe that the consolidation is resulting in mammoth conglomerates of vendors that will be harder, more confusing, and more expensive to work with. We believe that there is just as much uncertainty around the future of the large vendor’s offerings as there are with startup offerings. In this light, we don’t believe that there’s anything more inherently risky about a startup solution than an established, incumbent vendor solution.

　　The only thing that has us concerned about the startup landscape is the shortage of new startups. We’ve seen a significant drop-off in new enterprise software venture creation. We are not entirely sure why this is. Is there simply less demand for new enterprise software solutions? Is there less opportunity for new enterprise software startups?

　　Has the venture capital and finance community lost interest with enterprise software? Or has the area of innovation moved away fr

om enterprise software? We hope none of these things are true. The enterprise still has leagues to go to get closer to the vision of loosely-coupled, agile, heterogeneous systems that can meet the ever-changing needs of business with high governance and low risk. There’s plenty of opportunity here. Startups: do your part innovating in this space. Enterprises: do your part and implement startup companies’ offerings so that innovation does not come screeching to a halt.

　　More:http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gardner/including-startups-in-your-soa-infrastructure-a-guide-for-enterprise-architects/3538?tag=content;search-results-rivers