AKIBIA'S PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Why HP is Worried about TPM’s
Recently HP’s anti-third party maintenance data sheet crossed my desk. Why is a multi billion dollar hardware behemoth worried about third party support providers?
The fact that this data sheet even exists is proof that a large number of forward-thinking, innovative companies are looking to third party maintainers for customized, high-value, lower cost data center support services. If so many customers weren’t moving away from HP and to third party maintainers, they wouldn’t need four-pages of talking points to combat it. In fact, more than two-thirds of all companies leverage a third party maintainer for IT support today. This isn’t a new phenomenon driven by a poor economy. This is smart businesses making the right decisions for data center maintenance.
In the document, HP’s argument is a familiar one made by many OEMs: "Yes, we are more expensive, but you’re paying for access to the people who created the hardware."
The reality is those who choose HP for support are paying a premium which is funneled to new product development and to support the bloated structure of the company. The sales team is encouraged to sell you upgrades to the new product versions, rather than helping you extend the life of the well-performing systems you are paying to support in the first place.
The document questions the training, expertise and product knowledge of third party maintainers. While it is possible to question the experience of some TPMs, it’s not possible with Akibia. Let’s look at a few statistics that back this up.
- Our customer retention rate – More than 95% of our customers renew services year-over-year. If service quality were an issue, would this be the case?
- Our engineers’ experience – Our OEM certified engineers average 10 years experience in the industry.
- Nearly zero escalations to the OEM – Akibia escalates .001 percent of all inquiries to the OEM each year. In the very rare instances we do, we cover the cost ourselves.
Choosing a data center maintenance partner is a big decision, and you should be thorough in your research and analysis of the vendors. HP is right when they suggest you should evaluate the response times and levels of coverage any company can provide. You’ll find that nimble, fast-acting third party maintainers are saving you costs not by providing less service, but by providing a more customized service package that best meets your needs, and eliminates charges for support you do not require.
If you have questions about working with third party maintainers, post them here and we can start a dialog, or you can contact Akibia directly for a one-on-one conversation.
