The Scale of Evil

Google's famous company motto "Don't be evil" was evolved a couple of years ago by the search giant to an 'evil scale' that allowed company operatives to accept "small evils" to allow for greater good. The notion of 'evil' here refers to doing something not exactly according to your purest principles in order to gain a business advantage.


Let's face it. In business, decisions are not always black and white, and there is often temptation to bend the rules a bit for an immediate gain. For instance, one could be tempted to bypass your regular channel for a specific large opportunity in order to increase margin on that deal, or take a quick sale from a customer even though you think the product might not be a perfect fit for what he/she is trying to do. So every business in fact operates on an evil scale, sometimes being more evil, sometimes being less evil. In general, being less evil pays up, but in the (very) long term. Some companies are unfortunately tempted to take a shortcut sometimes...:)

I like Sangoma's position on that scale. The company treats its customers fairly and makes sure the channel is rewarded from working us. That's different from other companies in our industry. In particular, some companies in the open source telephony market have recently tried to increase their business at the expense of their long-standing partners, by offering competing products. Ouch! That gives them a few points on the evil scale. Will the move pay off for them? The market is already rumbling. In the long run, I think the less evil will prevail. Oh well, time will tell.