On Mon, 4 Dec 2000, Brian Ford wrote:
> Kriss,
>
> I guess you are new to this forum.
Havent lurked for more than a year or so. Admittedly, you're the first
one I've seen here that acted more salesbeing than anything else.
> >Aim to please. Thanks for the ads by the way. You'd be surprised how much
> >we all appreciate sales pitch a few times a day. It's nice to see someone
> >bold enough to beat their own drum for once too - I mean, hell.. when you
> >never see product users recommending it, someone obviously has to do it!
>
> Almost funny. Actually, we have a variety of methods our customers
> use to obtain support.
Indeed. (Now, what has -that- got to do with anything of the above
statement?) What I'm getting at, with my usual feeling for tact and
diplomacy, is that we can have two things: Vendors using this as a forum
for sales, or everyone using this as a forum for comments, info and
discussion. Also, there's the question of being anal retentive or not.
When I posted my first post in the thread, I was actually thinking 'should
I post a disclaimer after every sentence, or will people have enough
distance to see this is (a shot at) humor?'..
It seems 'naah. People will figure it out' was the wrong answer.
<snip>
> >Ayep, security through obscurity is a well known and highly respected
> >paradigm. Quite correctly, Cisco is one of the market leaders in this
> >department.
>
> I guess you read Ben's note. Well done. Have you heard any other
> good ideas lately?
<sarcasm>My bad, I forgot you seem to consider it a trade secret as
well..</sarcasm>
<snip>
> If you are concerned with how prices are set I'd suggest studying
> marketing. I hear they cover that in a couple of those courses.
Sorry. I'm far too honest to be working in marketing or sales..
<snip>
> You really should try to get out more often. We haven't spoken about
> ease of install in years.
To quote your own reading suggestion <http://www.cisco.com/go/pix> :
"As a dedicated appliance, the Cisco Secure PIX Firewall is easy to
install and highly stable." (This is close to the end of the page)
<18 lines of "we're so great" later..>
For things that always worked and never had a bug, price would not be an
issue. To say Cisco products doesnt have its fair share of issues would be
silly - hell, the %% thing alone was just pathetic. You've now done the
sales pitch three times over. Nothing is new. Yes, you have a good support
organization - I cant say I ever disagreed there. Yes, I do understand
what you charge for. No, I dont think it's worth it - most of the time.
That is my opinion. Can you now -please- accept that though you -do- have
a 24/7 support, in N different languages, some people value different
things? Open source, for one. Call me an idiot (oh, you did already. My
bad..) if you want, but yes, persinally I do value that over 24/7 phone or
email support, no matter how bloody big the support organization is.
> And we have a FAQ too!
...
> Great! "good security is a pain"! Security is too hard for just
> anyone to understand. You need a specialized guy (like you) to figure
> out all the big, bad security stuff. Gee, and you subscribe to all
> those special mailing lists that other people don't know about.
> Right?
I'm going to state the obvious here: A firewall isnt a magic little box
that sits somewhere and makes everything attached to it so damn 'secure'
(by some odd definition) all by itself. You know that, I know that, the
rest of the list knows that, so what the heck are you trying to say?
a) We dont have any specialists, but boy do we have 24/7 support..
b) As long as he wears a Cisco shirt, our idiot is better than your
professional!
c) Buy Cisco, and it'll all be perfectly secure. You dont need to do
anything else, honest.
d) Hey, look.. Here's a chance to sidetrack the discussion and try some
slamming. Hope nobody notices..
e) All of the above
?
> Their price may be realistic given what they provide. What about
> support? I suppose they have someone who regularly answers e-mail.
> Maybe a local phone number? Maybe a FAQ?
As I stated above I (that's ME, as in the person. Not my employer, not
whoeverelse) frankly care more about decent quality and secure code (even
if it isnt open source. I'm not saying I dont like ipf as well ;-) than
the 24/7 customer support you push as if it was the only thing in the
world that mattered. Your world, maybe. Not mine.
> That's good. They "dig up vulnerabilities". But do they solve
> customers problems?
Should I take it you dont consider firewall vulnerabilities to be
customers problems? Or, do you mean all customers are dumb animals who
need 24/7 phone support in N languages? If they solve customers problems,
I do now know. I never had to call.
Looks like the end has been reached. Literally. I doubt I have anything
more to say, and I'm rather sure you dont have anything new. This is
moving towards a pissing competition quickly enough, and I'm sure the list
can be saved that. This is the last mail I'm writing on this list
and thread.
> Brian
Kriss
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