Monday, March 29, 2010

Guess the identity of the Faceless Consulting Company



I'm always intrigued to find faceless consulting companies popping up to service the Notes market. You know the sort... "We're experienced in Notes yada yada and you can email us at 'support@newconsultingcompany.com' to talk to our expert technicians"..., but there's no names, no IBM certifications and certainly no 'feel-good' factor about who you might be dealing with. Sure, they may have a cool web-site but you can check here to see what I think of consulting companies who have cool web-sites. They say they are 'certified for IBM Lotus software', but there is no information about their certified software package.

Hey, it's a free internet and people can build whatever sites they like (subject to IBM's permission to use the IBM + Lotus logo), but would you as a customer ever contact such a site? Even if they had the most skilled Notes people in the world I wouldn't use them. I find there is something disturbing about people who won't back up their claims of competency with their own name.

So go and check out our new competitors in the Sydney market and add your two cents about their identity. My guess is that it's a full time employee of another consulting company who's about to jump ship and is putting their stake in the ground. When the day comes in a month or three then they'll add the face and name. I could be wrong, but it's fun to guess.

If you are currently managing a Notes consulting company in the Sydney market then perhaps ask yourself if any of your employees who live in Randwick and have worked for Qantas, Accenture, HSBC Australia, Lumley General Insurance, MasterFoods, Lloyds of London, Ernst & Young and Star City Casino (as claimed on the web site) have been a bit twitchy lately. It may be time to call them into your office for a quiet conversation.
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8 comments:

Qtzar said...

or you could just do a whois lookup on the domain and find out the name and address of the person who registered the domain.

Graham Dodge said...

... more fun just to guess :)

Boris Patoka said...

Hi Graham,

I appreciate your feedback on the "cool" site - being a Domino developer, site layout (as opposed to the back-end fun) is always a real challenge - I'm sure you know what I mean. Normally, I would have used a designer for the layout, but I thought I'd try my own creativity, so it's good to have positive feedback.

For the moment, let me say that Cloud9.0 is me + 2 associates that I can pass work onto (all based in Australia, though not in the same office), each of us with at least 10 years' experience in Notes/Domino. But, again, thank you for the suggestions re "feel-good" pages. I will see what I can do in the coming months.

In the meantime, please send us an email or give us a call if you would like any further information on our services, or if you have projects you'd like our input on.


Regards,

Boris Patoka - Development Manager, Cloud9.0

Graham Dodge said...

Gee Boris, now you've spoiled it all... it was more fun when you were a faceless 'Man of Mystery'. But now that we've got you here can you explain your use of the 'Certified for Lotus Software' logo? I didn't see any software package listed for sale on your web site and if you were trying to show that you are a Certified IBM/Lotus Business Partner then you are using the wrong logo.

Gavin Bollard said...

Is this man bothering you?

Graham Dodge said...

Hello Officer... no, he's not bothering me... I was just poking in the anthill with a stick to see what would come out :)

Boris Patoka said...

Hi Graham,

Sorry to spoil the fun! While I don't half-mind cultivating a bit of mystique personally, I think it might be a bad company image. Anyway, someone could have just looked up cloud9.0 at www.abr.gov.au

I'll check with our IBM BP program contact re emblems, thanks for the heads up.

Since you mention software packages, we're going to be launching a snazzy little xpages-based timesheet application shortly. For anyone out there, let me know if you would like a demo in the meantime!

Boris

Graham Dodge said...

Denise Harper was running the Lotus Business Partner programme when I last checked. Feel free to send me some stuff about your new software and I'll give it a plug on this blog. It's the least I can do to thank you for a day of suspense-filled entertainment.