Ok, guys, let’s have a meeting. I have a plan, but first we have to state the obvious, just to get it out there:
Everything a manufacturer says about their own product is positive. It is impossible for anything to be perfect for everyone, but they will tell you it’s the best—as near-perfect as anyone can get and leagues above the competition. That is their job. We know this.
So we do online research about the products and compare and contrast for ourselves, and then we realize that we’re only getting to read company-approved materials. We’re not even comparing products, we’re comparing marketing departments. For one thing, most companies present performance data under optimum conditions, so while not dishonest it isn’t really a true-to-life representation of what you can expect, and everyone stipulates different optimum conditions.
Further confused and frustrated because we’re trying to compare apples to elephants with different parameters for their therefore incomparable data, we are stuck. Back we go to the manufacturers with more specific questions, which they answer very well, but we’re afraid to believe them.
Here’s the plan—we stick together. We treat each other like friends. When you need something, we’ll help. No one is pushing for anything. Our obligation is to our friends and our sense of right and wrong, not a brand.
If two companies are selling fundamentally the same thing, but one of them has a million dollars marketing budget, the prices will be decidedly different because the marketing budget has to come from somewhere. It often is that simple, but not if you don’t make it past that first shiny display to talk to the lesser-known but strong companies with quality products and very little investment in marketing, and we happen to know those guys. They’re good peeps. GB Labs is big in the UK but not well known here yet, and Symply is Quantum-quality for a fraction of the cost. Studio Network Solutions builds one of the most stable stand-alone NAS systems around and they don’t do commercials, so you’d have to know what you were looking for to look up their EVO solution.
SkyTech Media Solutions wants to be the friend you trust whose whole job is to translate from marketing to reality, make a solid recommendation that isn’t based in “moving units,” and if you want, take over the technical bits for you. If we stick together, we can keep it real. Let’s make origami cranes from all those shiny fliers and cut past the confusion. SkyTech is here to help.