IT Enquirer covers software, hardware, and enterprise systems and we apply stringent levels of objectivity to our content.

In order to write a review on software we always ask for a Not For Resale (NFR) license in order to be able to write the review at our own pace instead of having to rush to be ready within the demo period most software vendors now allow.

We have never had a software vendor explicitly ask us to write a favourable review in return for the ability to keep on using the application afterwards, and we would not comply if they did (or we would refuse to cover the software –which has happened a couple of times during the 20 years we have been in this business as a journalist for multiple magazines).

NOTE: most of the desktop software we review we do not use afterwards, simply because we do not have a use for it.

There are two types of hardware reviews on IT Enquirer. The first one is where we explicitly ask the vendor to let us keep a device after review in return for a banner ad on IT Enquirer. Most of the banner ads on IT Enquirer are the result of such a barter trade.

The main reason for trading a product for a banner ad is objectivity. We pay the vendor for his product with a comparable time period of banner advertisements so we can write about his product freely. In some cases, we ask the vendor for a trade before the review, in other cases we ask them afterwards, and in yet other cases we return the product after review. When we ask the vendor upfront, the product is meant to be kept as a reference product. Usually, these products are already well-known for their good quality and our review is only meant to shed some light on aspects that third party reviews have ignored.

When we ask the vendor if we can keep the product afterwards, we want it because it turned out to be of good enough quality to serve as a reference product and/or we would like to personally use it or try out different features at a later stage.

We would like to make it clear that we never write favourably about any hardware unless we stand by it. Vendors have yet to ask us explicitly or implicitly but we would not comply to do them a favour –that is exactly why we use the barter system in the first place.

The second thing we would like to draw your attention to is that we have no long-term sponsorships going on with vendors of hardware in return for favourably reviews of their products.

We do have two long-term sponsorships on IT Enquirer: Verbatim and Katun. Neither of their products are reviewed on a regular basis and occasional product reviews are not influenced by the sponsorship deal.

On IT Enquirer you will find analyses and reports. Some reports are free to download while others can only be accessed after payment of a subscription and/or a fee.

The free downloadable reports have been paid for by the respective system vendors, either before the report was written (commissioned) or afterwards (purchased on a license basis, what we call sponsored). Either type of report contain criticism (sponsored) or only describe a system’s functionality and feature set (commissioned).

We never write reports of which the content is directed by the vendor –although some of them do try to influence content even prior to buying. This is made clear to vendors who commission reports at IT Enquirer before the project is started, and most vendors who commission a report from IT Enquirer do so exactly for that reason.

Reports and content that can only be accessed subject to payment of a subscription or a fee are never commissioned nor purchased on a license basis afterwards. The reason why these reports are not paid for by vendors can be because multiple systems are covered, or because the topic is not recognised as having enough value to specific vendors’ market and/or marketing.

Therefore, we think we may safely state our content is objective by any measure. The above allows you to judge for yourself how objective we can be.