is TSO undercutting itSMF for book sales of ITIL Version 3?

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2007-06-20 22:27
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When I went to university, we still learnt that wholesalers must be careful to respect their retail dealer network. Obviously the rules are all different now: rumour has TSO actively undercutting itSMF for Version 3 book sales. With friends like that who needs enemies eh?

The word is that TSO has cut deals direct with some of the itSMF Global members (we heard IBM and HP), giving them deeper discounts than itSMFI are offering. Can anyone verify this?

I guess itSMFI are doing it to the local chapters, so TSO figured why shouldn't they play the game too...

Comments

Submitted by Mark (not verified) on Thu, 2007-06-21 09:06.

ITSMF being undercut

Yes, I can confirm my copies of the books were cheaper than those advertised by the ITSMF. Don't quote me but it was in the region of £20-30 cheaper for the 5 hardcopy versions. They were purchased through an ATO that has a good relationship with TSO

Submitted by Ian Clayton (not verified) on Thu, 2007-06-21 20:38.

Will the commercialization of ITIL lead to the demise of itSMF?

Hi Skeptic

A discussion very close to my heart. We started to resell ITIL publications in 1998 to satisfy the needs of our customers as there was no other way to get access to the books. During my tenure with the itSMF USA I pushed hard for them to pick up this role, if only to enable bulk buying, easier access and cheaper availability. They declined. So I helped another more commercially minded organization save us from the drudgery of finding our books amongst the millions of items held in bonded customs warehouses.

We still sell ITIL books - as a courtesy and as a means of taking the industry ITIL pulse. My greatest fear with what I experience of the latest ITIL wave is the gravitational pull of money! Unfortunately I feel the itSMF chapters are just not business savvy enough to remain an influence and with that failure goes loss revenue and for some - demise...

I've tried to explain the rationale behind that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach in the following article on my blog (how do you make text hyper-linkable on your blog?):

http://itsmi.wordpress.com/2007/06/21/will-the-commercialization-of-itil...

Submitted by skeptic on Thu, 2007-06-21 20:46.

Hypertext links in blog comments

readers who log in get a choice of "input format" for comments. You can change to "trusted format" which allows links.

if you are not logged in I will (usually remember to) manually switch the format, as I've done here.

Sorry for the inconvenience: it is an anti-spam device.

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