alt Hacker NewsA D&B report is not going to tell you everything you need to know about a company and the dynamics and problems it has with respect to the problem space that you and your company deal with.
I mean, you could somehow get access to an entire company's email history and it still won't tell you everything you need to know. Whether people like it not, sometimes direct, high-bandwidth human interaction is required to adequately understand an issue.
> and it still won't tell you everything you need to know
Talking to them will? we cannot have it both ways (the entire company's email history is not enough to tell me what I need, but meeting for an hour, say three times with the salesperson will).
I think you _are_ right, but I do not need everything. I just need good enough to make a decision to move forward.