I received a comment from ARonaut (see below) regarding whether our new tactic of putting analysts with our partners without us being in the room to monitor what was said. Since not everyone read comments on blogs, I decided to blog it instead.

Here is a list of comments from both the partners and analysts:

“excellent opportunity to speak with analysts” & “best part was partner one on ones”

“was excellent on all counts, I like the transparency – Very important!”

“this was probably one of the most high value initiatives of our IBM relationship so far”

“more time in each session”

“great one on one format; good opportunity for candid conversations”

I knew going in that there would be sticky subjects, which there were as there always is with analysts… like how big IBM is and how easy/hard it is to work with us on some things, what is the best model for SaaS, and others. That just made it real for everyone. We wouldn’t have been sincere if everyone was a shill for us and there weren’t any warts. So it worked because we talked real life experiences.

So net-net, it is a good model and we will use it again as it’s a forum for the open exchange of ideas and issues.