Antonio Rajan - Rebuttal 101

by Joe Van Niekerk

Published 1997-09-01    Printer-friendly version

Many of us encounter hurdles and obstacles in the market when attempting to get our Clarion applications accepted. Antonio's session objective was to arm us, the Clarion developers, to counter the objections and misconceptions that we might come across in marketing our Clarion applications.

Antonio introduced his sales team to the delegates and to outline where their areas of responsibility lay. The TopSpeed sales team is comprised of

• Tanya Johnson
• Jessica Estill, who is also responsible for the user groups in the U.S.
• Arthur Barrington
• Mike Pittinger, who is also responsible for the Corporate Sales efforts.
• Linda Bart, who manages all international sales.

The objectives of the session were:

• Objections to Clarion ("Why Clarion!?")
• Why Clarion is the right choice.
• Your TopSpeed Partner.
• An important strategic announcement.

Common Objections to Clarion

"We only buy Microsoft products"

Antonio related an experience he had in the United Kingdom before he joined TopSpeed where a Microsoft executive remarked that Microsoft had created the Upgrade Business Unit which became Micosoft's largest revenue generator!

Microsoft employs the "flood the market and then dictate" technique.

Clarion complements Microsoft products and Antonio recommended a great way to approach this objection. Test Clarion in a non-strategic corporate application. This will give the MIS manager an opportunity to accurately evaluate Clarion. Many corporations have an "Exclusive Microsoft" vision and strategy, but since this is a non-strategic application the MIS manager would probably not be required to report testing Clarion to upper management. Antonio apparently has had much success in getting TopSpeed's foot in the door this way!

Advertising

Nothing advertises a product like success and Antonio related some examples of Clarion's significant success in the market recently.

Versus Visual Basic

Mitsubishi evaluated Clarion after they had not had much success using Visual Basic to develop their corporate applications. They highlighted what they saw as Clarion's strengths over VB.

• Clarion provided one development environment for 16 and 32bit applications. Mitsubishi has a large investment in 16bit platforms that still needed to be supported.
• Clarion had an incredibly short learning curve compared to VB.
• Clarion had far superior execution speed.
• They particularly appreciated the Clarion Dictionary.
• The Internet approach that the Internet Connect provided was particularly attractive to them.
• Clarion could compile to a single exe, and the shipping files for Clarion kept the installations small and simple. One, as opposed to 4 or 5, disks!
• Clarion included embedded reports contained within the exe.

In factoring the development time and cost of using the two products they concluded that a two- year, six-developer project would be completed by Clarion in just 6 months!

In a separate instance Antonio pointed out that Chris Bailey had been called in by one of the largest consulting firms in the U.S. and had taken a 3 year and 6 developer project and completed it single handedly in 3 months!

Versus Powerbuilder

• 16 and 32bit target platforms
• Faster exe speed.
• Considerably shorter learning curve.
• No knowlege of SQL Language needed
• Clarion has a unified application development for the PC, Intranet and Internet.
• Clarion is much less expensive.

Versus Delphi

• 16 and 32bit target platforms in one code base
• Borland has been embroiled in developer problems.
• Borland has been closing offices all over Europe; there are some concerns over the direction and future of the company.
• Clarion has an embedded report engine.
• Clarion has a 4GL business language versus Pascal.
• There are real questions concerning the Borland Database engine.

"We cannot find Clarion Programmers"

• No problem -- hire the best programmers and train them.
• With Clarion's easy language syntax and short learning curve they will soon demonstrate the productivity gains corporations are after.
• Local user groups are a good place to find Clarion resources.
• TopSpeed will in the future implement a Clarion programming resources application on their Website and corporations will be able to query resources in their area. (Corporations will be able to check their remuneration strategies by the frequency of their programming staff appearing in the database! Programmers must keep in mind that this will be a public database.)

"There are no books on Clarion"

• This is primarily due to the excellent documentation that is included with Clarion.
• The easy syntax of the Clarion language and the application generator means that you invariably don't need a book to tell you how to do something. The menagerie of books for other development products generally indicate that it is harder to do thing with them. ("Learn database programming in Visual Basic in 21 Days!?", I rest my case.)
• Antonio has pointed out to many MIS managers that their programmers are paid to write applications and not to read books.

"Who is TopSpeed?"

Most Clarion programmers are familiar with HBO and the Billion-dollar success of the company. It is always worth referring to the Borland connection, Jensen and Partners and the history of TopSpeed Corporation. If anyone is looking for more information on this well documented topic, look on the TopSpeed website at http://www.topspeed.com or call TopSpeed sales.

TopSpeed has been in the business for 15 years and their only focus is on development tools.

"Is TopSpeed going to be around in 5 years?"

Antonio related the success since he reported back at the 1996 DevCon. At the 1996 we saw the following:

• The release of Clarion for Windows 1.5.
• The release of Oracle connect.
• The Accessories Program had a total of 22 accessories.
• TopSpeed sales were shipping 5000 pieces of direct mail a month.
• TopSpeed employed a reactive sales strategy.

Here at DevCon 1997 he had the following to highlight:

• Clarion for Windows 2.0 and Report Writer have been released.
• TopSpeed has released the well-received TopSpeed ODBC driver.
• The imminent release of Clarion 4.
• The release of the Internet Connect in beta.
• TopSpeed now has 46 accessories on the accessories program with a well balanced set of products.
• TopSpeed Sales now ship 20 000 pieces of direct mail per month!
• TopSpeed now employs a pro-active sales operation, which is proving very successful.

TopSpeed has had major revenue growth in the last year and recently has had record earning months.

TopSpeed is profitable.

TopSpeed is committed to growing Sales.

TopSpeed is committed to increasing their marketing effort. They expect to appoint a Vice President of Marketing in the near future. They have employed the services of a top U.S. public relations firm, PRx to help re-identify and re-image the company.

TopSpeed has been receiving press accolades and recognition in Visual Developer (March 1997) and InfoWorld (June 1997).

Antonio highlighted the corporate penetration that TopSpeed is achieving with their Corporate user list. This included companies such as Coopers & Lybrand, Deloite & Touche, Department of Defense, Ernst and Young, F.B.I., H.P., IBM, Spring, Universal Studios and a host of others!

TopSpeed is forming strategic alliance partnerships with some key industry leaders, including

Netscape, Oracle, IBM, Informix and Pervasive.

Client-Server is fast growing. One of the net benefits is less network traffic. The server handles the load of database management easing the load on the client and this invariably leads to easier to use client applications.

TopSpeed is committed to Client-Server. They currently have existing SQL drivers and many that are imminent for target databases, such as Oracle, AS/400, Informix, SQLServer, SQLAnywhere, Sybase and Scalable SQL.

At this point Antonio announced that TopSpeed and Pervasive have joined forces and formed a strategic alliance.

The reasons for the alliance are due to the following factors:

• Pervasive and TopSpeed have the same customer base.
• 75% of all accounting software in the U.S. uses Btrieve.
• They both have tremendous recent sales growth.
• The synergy between the two companies and their products is excellent.

In fact the synergy is so great between the two companies that he likened it to a "Love-fest", which greatly amused the audience!

The alliance appears to be a far-reaching one, encompassing not only the two companies' Technology, but their Sales and Marketing strategies.

Clarion 4 will come with in-the-box Client-Server, since Scalable SQL will be bundled with Clarion 4! From October 1 it will be included at no extra cost.

The supercharged OBBC driver for scalable SQL and the improved response of the Clarion Btrieve driver means that Clarion will be the fastest desktop database and a client server development platform.

TopSpeed and Pervasive will be embarking on joint road shows and sales ventures, which will give both companies the opportunity to explore new sales territories.

Antonio closed with the following points to remember.

• TopSpeed has a continuous flow of leading edge technologies from the London development center.
• TopSpeed has recorded tremendous recent sales growth.
• TopSpeed has great alliances with other leading edge companies.
• The close alliance between TopSpeed and Pervasive will potentially open an important future market for all Clarion programmers.

The bottom line is that you and TopSpeed have a solid future!

Antonio gave a clear and often amusing session that will not only well equip Clarion programmers for the future but also give them a real sense of where TopSpeed Corporation is headed and ultimately where the Clarion programmer's direction and opportunities will lie in the future!

Printer-friendly version

Copyright © 1999-2008 by CoveComm Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in any form without the express written consent of CoveComm Inc., except as described in the subscription agreement, is prohibited.

Clarion Magazine ISSN 1718-9942