I wound up in the IT profession through the back door of telecommunications and have never really had a handle on who makes the best equipment.

In our particular niche (migration) there are myriad competitors, all who use similar verbiage as ours to describe their services. The complication with this is that many of them are far from qualified to move a data center, but have branched into technology from the base of corporate office relocations. These van lines tend to use the same descriptions in their advertising, but bring an entirely different level of service to project planning and management. Once you're in the middle of a critical server move, it is a little late to ask whose bringing the hardware and patch cables.

Since we cannot monopolize adverbs and adjectives, and all who dabble in the English language are privy to the same basic words, how does one differentiate between the groups who say they minimize business disruption and the ones who actually do?

We encourage our client base to research the references provided to them by all vendors and assimilate this information into a price/quality comparison. Still yet, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then and it is hard to get a real handle on how any particular group performs on a job-by-job basis.

With servers, the language describing is even more ambiguous. Efficiencies, scalabilities, managabilities and performance top the list of each manufacturer's web site I visit.

So, who makes the best gear? Who makes the best servers? Who has the best service contract? For a small company building their network and infrastructure for the future, what are some guidlines?

I'd love to have feedback from any of you DC Pros on who makes the Cadillac and who makes the Kia?