The business model for ManageEngine is to rely on low cost as a means to lure customers. Their product does not cost as much as their competitors, but the reason being is they expect you to either pay them or pay somebody who's been educated in their classes to get the job done. It is cheap for a reason, and the reason is their business model. They are appealing to businesses that are bottom dollar businesses. The problem with that business model is that it can build unrest in the development department because the tech crew will not know how to use the tool. Then a boss will tell them to figure it out. It all happens because it is cheap rather than because it solves a problem. Ultimately you are going to either pay more money for a good product in the end or you are going to have people getting frustrated and leaving the company because they could not get the work done. ManageEngine, in my experience, fosters that type of environment. It doesn't have an "easy button," a graphic user interface, ease-of-use, and ease-of-dev —the product does not have any of that. You get locked into finding an SME (Subject Matter Expert) to develop it out for you. One way or another you end up paying more and taking longer to get it done. Our head sysadmin guy was the one that really got into the product first. His feedback was that there was no GUI and everything was pretty much done on the command line. The support stunk because they either did not give you the information you needed or they just did not bother to answer. He had a hard time with it. What I think ManageEngine really needs to add to make the package more valuable are free, automated classes. They will not do it because of the business model. But if they would make it easier to access the training, I think you would see a lot more use of their products.
