But once an IT manager decides to "stay ahead of the game" and go with a younger company, there is a lot of due diligence that needs to be done. For starters, looking at the financial situation of the vendor is a must, according to Info-Tech Research Group lead analyst Andy Woyzbun. He advised that enterprises use careful reference checks to try and find out whether or not the company is growing. "Interpreting a financial statement requires good accounting insight," Woyzbun said. "If their customer base is increasing, it's a very good sign."

Emerging vendors might also have a small or non-existent sales force, he said, so looking at the clarity of the company's Web site is crucial. A firm that can clearly demonstrate that they have a credible approach to what they are doing and have a reference base to support that is important, he said.

But quite possibly the biggest piece of advice to follow before signing on with an emerging firm, is to just get to know them better. "My advice is to talk to the principles of the startup," Ostrovsky said. "Ask them questions and try to gauge how well they know their stuff."

MacDonald, who deals with a lot of emerging companies through his Canadian startup blog, agreed, saying that the more prodding the IT managers do, the better. "Ask them about what they are building, what their stack looks like, what their integration points are and how their delivery infrastructure works - don't let them push you back," he said. "If they want the sale, they should be willing to show you what's behind the curtain and that they have built a great, enterprise-ready system that's going to be able to scale."

Most startups will argue, however, this is a two-way street and enterprise IT managers will need to have a strong plan, with specific deliverables in mind when approaching an emerging vendor for their services. "I can't tell you how many times I've seen clients come to us with contracts that say something vague like 'development work,'" Ostrovsky said. "That's not good enough. Be precise."

For IT managers that have changed their mindset and are ready to give an emerging Canadian firm a chance, here's five cutting-edge tech companies that offer great alternatives to what the big vendors are dishing out.

Smallthought Systems

If Chuck Norris was a data crunching system it would be Dabble DB, according to one enthusiastic user of the up-and-coming data management tool. Based out of Vancouver, Smallthought Systems' hosted database creator allows users create, collaborate and customize any kind of report, chart, or table that they need.

"Typically within a lot of enterprises, data is just tracked on spreadsheets that get e-mailed around," said Avi Bryant, co-CEO at Smallthought. "That's fine when you've just got one person managing the data, but it becomes a real problem when you've got a lot of people looking to use that data in multiple ways."

Dabble DB is aimed at end-users who want to easily create their own database using a simple point-and-click interface. If your data involves data and times, you can integrate calendars into the database, and if it involves addresses you can integrate maps, Bryant said.