Vendors On Call ... And You Didn't Even Buy Their Software

Established software vendor Opnet Technologies has taken an interesting approach to help organizations solve the vexing problems of application performance management. While nearly all of the big enterprise software vendors are trying to solve this problem by selling software, Opnet launched a service called STAR 24 (Special Team for Application Responsiveness). For a fixed fee, Opnet will dispatch consultants to a customer site within 24 hours of receiving the service order. If Opnet is unable to successfully identify the root cause of the problem, the full service fee is waived. For customers that have intermittent but recurring problems with specific applications, this alternative may be a low-risk solution to find troublesome problems. If Opnet can't solve the problem, customers don't pay. While larger customers may opt to just buy the Opnet software and find the problem themselves, the STAR service may be a good way to test the waters with Opnet and avoid often-expensive implementation and configuration costs.