After reading Miguel’s article The Bad PR List at Around the
Corner-MGuhlin.org, it got me thinking about the vendors in the
education community and some of my pet peeves. My biggest complaint with
education vendors is the lack of pricing transparency. If I’m going to
take the time to visit your website and examine your product, the least
you can do is put some pricing information on your website. For example,
if I’m looking at using a student response system with wireless products
such as Wifi Palms and iPod Touches, I could visit PollAnywhere.com,
click on Pricing, and then K12 and know exactly how much the
product will cost me. Now I still need to research other solutions, so
let’s visit Turningpoint.com. Cool, right in the middle of the front
page they have the product I want to learn about. Let’s see how much
this costs…. ummm… Nothing. I can contact sales, but that’s about
it.

Vendors, if you don’t list prices, I view that as your solution must be
too expensive for my school district. I’m pressed enough for time, I
don’t want to jump through hoops to see if your product is something
that we can use.