At Knight Strategies our mission is to create the best possible business relationships to the targeted audience listed below. We know from first hand experience that most, if not all, relationships can and should be improved. Those improvements can range from financials to terms and conditions, from initial product selection to best practices. What is usually the most glaring area is the financial metrics or return on investment (ROI). There are many factors which influence this performance and not all are with in the control of either partner. Knowing what those pitfalls are will help manage expectations and set the right goals. Building the right business model is critical to this area. We are experts in financial modeling and provide a thorough analysis of the model.

OEM - Original Equipment Manufacture

Traditionally they are the brand name that is familiar to most people, For example: Acer, Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Packard Bell, Toshiba and Sony to name a few. Others in the Tier two category are Positivo, CCE, Sempe-Toshiba and Megaware.

ODM - Original Design & Manufacture

These are the manufacturing resource that the ODM employs. Most OEM’s do not make their products any more but use a dedicated resource usually located in Asia, especially China and Taiwan. Some of these are Foxconn, Asus and Gigabyte.

OBM - Own Brand Manufacture or Original Brand Manufacture

Companies such as Foxconn, Assus and Gigabyte now are building and branding their own products for sale.

ISV - Independent Software Vendor

Software manufacturers such as Intuit, Adobe, Symantec and Microsoft want relationships with the OEM and in some cases the OBM to have their products shipped on their products. This of course is in addition to the retailing of their product. The difference is that the software products are shipped by the OEM/OBM on a trial basis. So called trial ware.

ISP - Internet Service Provider

AOL, MSN, NetZero, British Telecom and Global are some examples of ISP’s. They also desire to be shipped on the OEM/OBM product. Again, this is in the form of a trial offer. A different form of this vendor is the ASP or Application Service Provider. Google and Yahoo are two good examples of this. They provide not only the Internet capability (usually in partnership with a carrier like SBC Global) but the very well known search capabilities.

SaaS - Software as a Service

is a method offered by the ISV or ISP/ASP whereby a license is provided to use the software or client usually on a monthly basis. Examples of that are AOL, France Telecom, Tiscali and NetZero. SaaS software vendors may host the application or provide a download to the end user. The usability of the application is controlled by the vendor. More and more ISV’s are moving to this model.