Leader: Vendor bully boys take note

Nobody likes an aggressive salesman – whether it's a second-hand car salesman, pushy estate agent or the more recent stereotype of the obnoxious IT salesman.

IT is confusing at the best of times and these characters are often portrayed as exploiting uncertainty in the marketplace or hiding behind rapid-fire acronyms, meaningless stats, trumped up facts, worst case scenarios, scare tactics and over-promised benefits of cost and performance.

Comment out yesterday from analyst house Ovum suggests these characters are very real and are throwing their weight around in offices the length and breadth of the country. Among the tactics they use are the softly, softy 'first hit for free' approach of the drug pusher and the rather self-explanatory if (we hope) figurative 'gun in the mouth approach' of non-negotiable street robbery.

They'll tell you it's because their rivals are all the same way and they're not going to lie down and get trampled by the herd... possibly in more colourful terms.

But these aren't nice associations and not a great reflection on an industry which struggles for respectability at the best of times. And when we hear nightmare stories of the salesman from hell there are some big names cropping up time and time again. These aren't small vendors trying to muscle their way in with overzealous or ill-considered aggression, these are big companies many of us use.

Sadly, the opportunity to be responsible and self-regulating appears to be lost on the highly competitive IT industry where it is assumed nice guys will finish last.

But it's a blight on the reputation of an industry which needs to be showing it can be positive and communicative, not conniving and brutish.