Communication Skills Pay Dividends

Management software is the newest market in storage, one in which vendors are zealously working to expand and polish their portfolios with the promise to make customers' environments more manageable. Although worldwide storage management software revenues are projected to grow only 2.9 percent this year to $4.8 billion, according to research firm Gartner, it is still an area in which most vendors continue to invest much research and development. Why? Simply, it's where they plan to make money once IT spending rebounds.

A true market leader, however, has yet to be determined. Consider VARBusiness' 2003 Annual Report Card survey: Prior to this year, Veritas won the storage management category two years in a row. But this year, IBM Tivoli knocked the incumbent out of first place. Hewlett-Packard finished second, relegating Veritas to third place.

One of Tivoli's strongest points, according to VARs surveyed, is product innovation. In the past year, VARs say that Tivoli has added many new functions throughout its product line. More important, the software is now so well-accepted in the marketplace that there is plenty of expertise around--both within the VAR community and IBM Tivoli.

"What does not surprise me is that Tivoli was No. 1 in innovation. I think it has a very innovative team," says Andy Gorelik, COO for Strategic Computer Solutions, Syracuse, N.Y.

For Tivoli, one of the reasons behind its win is its emphasis on support--its weakest area last year. One of the steps the company took was to install the Tivoli Knowledge Center, a partner portal targeted at Tivoli VARs that are looking for help in terms of technology information or for sales kits.

"We took the results from last year to heart," says Michael J. Twomey, senior vice president of global marketing solutions group at IBM. "That is where we fell down...so we had put a lot of focus on it. Now it's considered a strength."