Bob wrote: > Perhaps the problem is one of educating the customer > so that they can > ammend their accounting practices. Different > business groups can > share the same pool if necessary.
Bob, while I don't mean to pick on you, that statement captures a major thinking flaw in IT when it comes to sales. Yes, Brian should do everything possible to shape the customer's expectations; that's his job. At the same time, let's face it. If the customer thinks he needs X (whether or not he really does) and Brian can't get him to move away from it, Brian is sunk. Here Brian sits with a potential multi-million dollar sale which is stuck on a missing feature, and probably other obstacles. The truth is that the other obstacles are irrelevant as long as the customer can't get past feature X, valid or not. So millions of dollars to Sun hang in the balance and these discussions revolve around whether or not the customer is planning optimally. Imagine how much rapport Brian will gain when he tells this guy, "You know, if you guys just planned better, you wouldn't need feature X." Brian would probably not get his phone calls returned after that. You can rest assured that when the customer meets with IBM the next day, the IBM rep won't let the customer get away from feature X that JFS has. The conversation might go like this. Customer: You know, we are really looking at Sun and ZFS. IBM: Of course you are, because that's a wise thing to do. ZFS has a lot of exciting potential. Customer: Huh? IBM: ZFS has a solid base and Sun is adding features which will make it quite effective for your applications. Customer: So you like ZFS? IBM: Absolutely. At some point it will have the features you need. You mentioned you use feature X to provide the flexibility you have to continue to outperform your competition during this recession. I understand Sun is working hard to integrate that feature, even as we speak. Customer: Maybe we don't need feature X. IBM: You would know more than I. When did you last use feature X? Customer: We used X last quarter when we scrambled to add FOO to our product mix so that we could beat our competition to market. IBM: How would it have been different if feature X was unavailable? Customer (mind racing): We would have found a way. IBM: Of course, as innovative as your company is, you would have found a way. How much of a delay? Customer (thinking through the scenarios): I don't know. IBM: It wouldn't have impacted the rollout, would it? Customer: I don't know. IBM: Even if it did delay things, the delay wouldn't blow back on you, right? Customer (sweating): I don't think so. Imagine the land mine Brian now has to overcome when he tries to convince the customer that they don't need feature X, and even if they do, Sun will have it "real soon now." Does anyone really think that Oracle made their money lecturing customers on how Table Partitions are stupid and if the customer would have planned their schema better, they wouldn't need them anyway? Of course not. People wanted partitions (valid or not) and Oracle delivered. Marty -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
