Always Cutting Costs…

By Eric Priezkalns 29 Jun 2008

Is ECtel, the Israeli vendor of RA and FMS software, cutting costs a little too far? Vendors should be careful with their money. It is good for their business and creates the right impression with customers. But I got an anonymous tip-off that indicates ECtel should think about increasing the amount they spend on software. Take a look at this PDF document on ECtel’s website. It is a short list of abbreviations that supplements a letter of warranty from HP Israel. If you scroll to the bottom, you can see a tell-tale sign of doing things on the cheap: an advert for trial version software used to create the PDF file. By not buying the latest PDF-writing software from Adobe, I guess ECtel can argue they saved about US$300 of their investors’ money ;)

Eric Priezkalns

Eric is the Editor of Commsrisk. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

Eric is also the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG), a global association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers.

Previously Eric was Director of Risk Management for Qatar Telecom and he has worked with Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky, Worldcom and other telcos. He was lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press. He is a qualified chartered accountant, with degrees in information systems, and in mathematics and philosophy.

1 Comment on "Always Cutting Costs…"

anonymous | 29 Jun 2008 at 8:45 pm |

Well, to be precise the savings are only $49.95, the cost of pdf factory license. Quite a few obvious questions to ask – like where else these harsh savings been applied, but more interesting to ask is it about savings or sloppiness ?