Trouble in Redmond

Problems with Vista and Office 2007 continue; plus, India aims for $15 billion in software, Intuit aims at SMBs’ online presence, HP aims to keep buying and more software news of the week.

Even the big guys have bad weeks. This week, it was Microsoft that faced a slew of challenging developments - involving everything from legal issues to application vulnerabilities.

In Europe, a new study found that few U.K. businesses see a pressing need to upgrade to Vista. Less than 5 percent of companies surveyed have begun a Vista upgrade project and only 1 percent had completed one.

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SANDHILL.COM BLOG POST OF THE WEEK:

Executive Access: Getting in and Earning the Keys to the Elevator

Jeff Thule
Salespeople say, “Executives won’t pay attention. They’re indifferent and won’t take the time to see us.” Executives say, “Salespeople all sound the same. They’re well versed about their products, but they don’t take the time to understand my business. I’ll see anyone that can show me a solid business case, but they shouldn’t whine if I won’t waste my time to ‘learn’ about their solutions.”

The result of this disconnect is that too many executives never connect valuable solutions that can make a measurable impact on their companies’ profitable growth and carry out their best positioned strategy, and the sellers end up with poor results. So what’s preventing executives from getting the information they need? It certainly isn’t a lack of innovative and exceptional products and solutions, and it doesn’t seem to be the executive’s lack of issues to be addressed.

In selling to executives, it is about establishing relevancy, credibility, and trust…all of which lead to access to people and information within the organization… what I refer to as “earning the keys to the elevator.”