I am a product vendor and have tried very hard to make sure that when I post about my product, I am clear about my connection to it, and that I post very responsibly. It makes it hard when a vendor comes in here and starts posting as a simulated user. Therefore, seeing this reasonable post Download IntelliVIEW V2 fully functional evaluation copy does not bother me much, so long as it is occasional. On the other hand, these posts from Chad Clark and and and and and these from Allan Cohen and and these from Pierre Moody and all pretend to be from people who are not connected to the product, or even act as if they have just found it or are using it for internal purposes. Other posts by Chad Clark are more ambiguous, but notably there is not one post from either of these three people that is not recommending intelliprint products. If you doubt these connections, try searching for 203.196.170.181 and 203.196.153.74. The Notes 4 & 5 forum is plagued with the same sorts of posts by these people.
Please stop this shady practice. I do not think there is anything wrong with suggesting your own product so long as you abide by a few rules, such as these I have for myself:
Always identify yourself and your connection to the product as explicitly as possible
Only suggest your product if it clearly and directly solves the problem being asked
If there are ways to easily solve the problem that use the native products, say so. This gets a bit hazy in some areas, where it might be possible with a great deal of work, but your solution makes it very easy, but even then it is worth noting that there might be a way using APIs or DXL or whatever is appropriate. If there is a differentiating factor in using your product, make clear what it is without too much market speak.
Never act like a user of the product unless you are. Even when I recommend other people’s products, I’ll say “I have used this” or “I have not used it but have heard it is good”. Don’t lie about it, or you lose credibility for both yourself and this forum.
Subject: As the CEO of CSS, Ben thanks and apologies guys
Ben
Thanks for your findings.
First Apologies. We sincerely apologize. This was an ‘intentional’ mistake by an inside sales employee and the employee has been fired for misconduct.
Secondly, as a company with over 550 employees and where Lotus Notes and related revenues constitute less than 10% of our revenues, I want you to appreciate that we are not desperate
We started off by making a living of Lotus Notes and thanks to Lotus/IBM we have grown rapidly and now have a big services portfolio of several technologies. So honestly, this is unintentional.
We promise we will never post any promotional messages on these Forum.
Ben thanks once again. I appreciate your help in auditing our system
Subject: RE: As the CEO of CSS, Ben thanks and apologies guys
I’ve just had a cold call at work from CSS regarding IntelliView. I am careful
with regards who gets my work phone number & email address, and I’d be
interested to know how CSS got a hold of this information.
Heck, I’d love to know how InsideDomino i>et al] have got a hold of this
information too – are IBM selling our details on?!?
Subject: RE: As the CEO of CSS, Ben thanks and apologies guys
My company uses IntelliPrint but we’re a few releases behind. The code I’m working with is nightmarish (not the IntelliPrint stuff, but the stuff written previously on our side). And, there is no IP designer tool. I downloaded the latest version to try to check it out and, like you, got a cold call not long after!! I don’t believe the CEO of CSS when he says they are not desperate. This is a very aggressive sales tactic. What I should be getting, as we are an established customer, is support!
Subject: Chad ‘intelliprint’ Clark abuses this forum for advertising.
I guess his intelliprint products are even a good solution for global warming and low back pain …
C’mon Chad (or wathever other names you use), this is a bit a childish way to put your products in the picture. If there were as less as 10 people doing the same thing as you, this forum would become totaly unusable…
Subject: Intelliprint vendor pretends to be different users for this forum
BenI have seen similar posts almost certainly from the same people, for the same product on other non-IBM Domino forums.
Unfortunately they rarely seem to take any note of gentle notes such as yours or even strong protests from others (in other forums). They seem to stop for a little while or switch to another forum and then come back later under different names.
In my exprience they have been doing this for at least 2-3 years in other forums.
I guess the forum moderators need to take stronger action. If everyone does this - and we all have products and services to offer to the Domino community - then we will not have a forum left.