Selling people on not buying new items

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

>From: stevic@ibm.net (Tom Stevic)
>
> on 07/13/98 Mitch Stone <mstone@vc.net> stated:
>
>>Boy, is this ever true. I was recently talking with the designated
>>"computer expert" in the office of a client of ours, trying to sell him
>>on an online database solution served by FileMaker. His first concern was
>> whether it was "compatible with FrontPage." It's kinda hard to answer
>>this sort of question with resorting to sarcasm. Well, it is for me,
>>anyway.
>
>>Suffice to say, it's pretty tough to sell non-Microsoft solutions when
>>the trench mentality is now normative.
>
>
>The answer I usually give to someone with this type of mindset is to say
>that whatever I am trying to sell meets industry standards, and I'm *sure*
>that microsoft would follow them also, although I might not have actually
>tested it.
>
>It is truly amazing though. I have a couple OS/2 machines doing data
>collection at a manufacturing plant in W.Va. Over the last 4 years the
>only times they have ever been taken down is when I updated the software.
>No one at the plant ever does anything to them except click a couple
>buttons to print reports.
>
>A few months ago, the new IT guy called me and told me I had to switch
>them over to win95, "because that is what the company has standardized
>on". After talking myself blue, I finally agreed, but after I gave him the
>price, and showed him the disclaimer that he would be responsible for any
>data loss, and I told him he would have to replace all the hardware, and
>the software, and have the application rewritten, he would be responsible
>if MS did not make the OS Y2K compliant, he backed down. I spent more
>energy selling them on leaving things the way they are than I did on the
>original sale.
>
>I still would not be surprised if he bought a different system from
>someone else. I just hope the fact that I cc his boss with all the
>documentation will help keep him from doing something stupid like that.



--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/), Cornell Biochemistry Department

Windows 98 is not the first product Microsoft has botched, nor will it be
the last.  But it is the last straw. . . . Users who do install it do so at
their own risk, and IS departments are not offering support.
- Scot Petersen, PC Week Magazine


===
This message was sent to mph-humor.  No guarantees of actual humor are
provided.  Archives and inaccurate instructions are available from
http://www.pobox.com/~mph/humor/ .  Requests to mph@pobox.com.