As someone who was buying hardware in the late 1990s, it is hard to overstate the difference in buying experience between Sun or Digital (DEC) and someone like Dell. The former forced you into a live sales meeting, endless quote revisions, it was a nightmare. I remember calculating the server rails and power cords for a new Alpha server were going to cost more than a shipped/delivered Dell server that I could get the next day.
Sun commercial sales reps, at least in Europe, were astoundingly slimy.
I had a colleague where almost his whole job consisted of beating them in sheer sliminess, and at this he was good. I don't think we ever paid 30% of the prices they'd start at, but the process of achieving this was disgusting, and there was still the sense everyone was being screwed.
Yeah, and it wasn't just the "call for pricing" game, it was having to deal with monthly "touching base" calls which were mostly an opportunity to push corporate hospitality and other not-quite-inducements.
Whereas Dell just gave us a flat 30% discount on list pricing, and were clear in advance about what level of annual spend would trigger an increase to 35%. We'd order online and our sales rep would phone a few hours later to confirm. Other than that, they'd initiate contact maybe once a year when Dell refreshed their server or storage product lines and would offer to either send some bumpf or arrange for some demo kit.
Dealing with them was so much less hassle all round, you never got covered in slime, and you never felt like they were on the verge of offering you bribes.
Uh, as in "excessive paperwork", like brochures/leaflets [1] about the new products? Not a native speaker, had a parse error I'm just trying to resolve ...
Yep, a mix of glossy brochures and things like white papers from Intel about their latest Xeon 3 architecture or whatever. They tended to lie about on someone's desk for 6 months before being chucked out...
(and I'd had no idea about the "bum fodder" derivation, so thanks!)
coreyh14444 · · focus · HN ↗
fidotron · · focus · HN ↗
I had a colleague where almost his whole job consisted of beating them in sheer sliminess, and at this he was good. I don't think we ever paid 30% of the prices they'd start at, but the process of achieving this was disgusting, and there was still the sense everyone was being screwed.
So when we could move to Dell we did.
roryirvine · · focus · HN ↗
Whereas Dell just gave us a flat 30% discount on list pricing, and were clear in advance about what level of annual spend would trigger an increase to 35%. We'd order online and our sales rep would phone a few hours later to confirm. Other than that, they'd initiate contact maybe once a year when Dell refreshed their server or storage product lines and would offer to either send some bumpf or arrange for some demo kit.
Dealing with them was so much less hassle all round, you never got covered in slime, and you never felt like they were on the verge of offering you bribes.
unwind · · focus · HN ↗
Uh, as in "excessive paperwork", like brochures/leaflets [1] about the new products? Not a native speaker, had a parse error I'm just trying to resolve ...
[1]: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/1hlbxv7/comment/m3kyff2/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/1hlbxv7/co...
roryirvine · · focus · HN ↗
(and I'd had no idea about the "bum fodder" derivation, so thanks!)
unwind · · focus · HN ↗