All the talk of “vision,” “partnerships” and “customer-centric solutions” by core vendors, followed by an utter dearth of interesting product development, can leave a guy jaded. But at long last, enter the Internet banking vendors – overconfident, overcommitted, chaotic – and a much-needed breath of fresh air.
Our clients are used to the plodding and now-predictable shenanigans by the core players, but we now find ourselves bracing CIOs for the Internet banking experience. The battle between the two wildly differing vendor styles is summarized in GonzoBanker’s:
“INTERNET VS. CORE VENDOR TALE OF THE TAPE”
| Internet Banking Vendors |
Core Processing Vendors |
Advantage |
|
| Pricing |
Egregious, punitive |
Just egregious |
Core |
| The Pitch |
We are FAR less unprofitable than our competitors. |
Our code is FAR less ancient than that of our competitors. |
Core (COBOL has another good 10 years left.) |
| Product Demo |
45 minutes showing product, 2 hours bashing competitors |
6 hours PowerPoint slides, 30 minutes showing product |
Internet (Less BS, and the bashing is expert and entertaining.) |
| Sales Rep Industry Awareness |
Mr. Magoo huffing WD-40 |
In touch |
Core |
| Sales Rep Attitude |
Dot.com arrogance cut with Gen-X apathy |
Hell-bent to please, hungry |
Core (Internet reps clearly unaware of the all-out market share war going on.) |
| Sales Rep Professionalism |
Phone calls returned, as necessary, during commercials |
Bleeding in a Turkish prison, rep will still return your call |
Core |
| Corporate Culture |
Banana Splits meets Beavis & Butthead, dude |
Nimble as the federal government |
Internet (The only thing that saves us from a bureaucracy is its inefficiency. – Eugene McCarthy) |
| Financial Condition |
Losing cash like a drunken Viking at the high roller tables |
Solid except for the client/server players |
Core |
| Sucker Product |
Retail shopping portal |
CRM |
Push (Both make my ears bleed.) |
It’s Core in an eighth round TKO!
(Note to vendors: We’ll publish your fewer-than-300-word response, verbatim, at your request.)
– smh