RE: Calling all NANOG'ers - idea for national hardware price quote registry
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Sean Figgins
Yes, it would be great, however it won't work.
Couple points. This is true typically in only the largest enterprise quotes. For the vast majority of medium and small business quotes NDAs are rarely used. And hey, if they are , that's why the process is anonymous ;-) Besides, in today's crap economy, is a vendor really going to come down on a client for violating an NDA and throw away $$$$? I personally don't have experience with this but I'm willing to bet that most NDAs are more bark than bite.
I forsee the following proplems:
1) Vendors do not want their pricing available for all (including competitors) to see
I know! That's the best part. Just what the airlines used to say back before the Internet - remember? My prediction is that once the info gets out there's no stopping it.
2) Vendors would require that list prices be used
3) You would still need to go to the vendor to find out what level of discount they are willing to give you, and then negociate the best discount you want.
4) Different companies of similar size are able to negotiate different levels of discounts, depending on the specifics of their relationship with the vendor. You're likely to get a better percent when you buy quantity 400 of "B" router/switch/SAN than quantity 2.
Sure, that will be in the quote.
5) Purchasing companies would be less likely to want to divulge this information, as it could hurt their competitive advantage. If they are getting a 75% discount, and their closest competitor is only getting 50%, they have a lot better advantage.
Well, that's why you don't get the VPs permission ;-). Anonymity!!
6) Such a list is likely actually cause companies to have to pay more.
Not sure about the logic here...
That being said, I would personally LOVE to have the information. I would not be able to participate because of the NDA that we have signed, or risk loosing my job.
-Sean
On Fri, 16 Sep 2005, Matt Bazan wrote:
anonymous ;-) Besides, in today's crap economy, is a vendor really going to come down on a client for violating an NDA and throw away $$$$? I personally don't have experience with this but I'm willing to bet that most NDAs are more bark than bite.
Most of the vendors I know of like to wine and dine the VPs. If a NDA gets violated, the vendor will not be forced to stop dealing with the company, just get the employee that violated the NDA to be fired. Companies are getting very, very picky about this kind of information getting out. And, if your company is publically traded, I am sure that some consultant will claim this is a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley.
5) Purchasing companies would be less likely to want to divulge this information, as it could hurt their competitive advantage. If they are getting a 75% discount, and their closest competitor is only getting 50%, they have a lot better advantage.
Well, that's why you don't get the VPs permission ;-). Anonymity!!
Oh goody, even more reason to get fired... Given enough ammo, and you'll get fired, even if the VP does like you.
6) Such a list is likely actually cause companies to have to pay more.
Not sure about the logic here...
Logic goes like this: Company is seeing that it's prices are getting out. Company stopps giving the good discounts to anyone, as they will have to give them to everyone otherwise... If you are looking for answers to RFPs, then you probably want a little more information than just price anyways, and will want to talk to not only the sales rep, but also someone from their engineering team, or at least a sales engineer. If you are already doing business with a company, and just want to have some incremental additional devices or services, then you probably don't have to talk to a sales guy much to get a quote from him. If you are shopping for the best price, and don't care about support costs, or technical specs, then go shop at CDW, or dell.com. Their prices are published. I digress, though. This really hasn't much to do with network operations, so I'm gonna stop. -Sean
On Sep 16, 2005, at 2:12 PM, Matt Bazan wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Sean Figgins
Yes, it would be great, however it won't work.
Couple points. This is true typically in only the largest enterprise quotes. For the vast majority of medium and small business quotes NDAs are rarely used. And hey, if they are , that's why the process is anonymous ;-) Besides, in today's crap economy, is a vendor really going to come down on a client for violating an NDA and throw away $ $$$? I personally don't have experience with this but I'm willing to bet that most NDAs are more bark than bite.
You might want to be careful there... A friend of mine moved from Company A to Company B and told his new employer what discount he had been getting from Vendor C (suggesting that new employer could get a better discount) . Vendor C promptly sued him for breach of NDA. AFAIR, the case was settled, but Company B had some fairly high legal bills... The range of discounts that different customers get is quite surprising and often seems to change mainly upon negotiation skills and not necessarily amount of equipment purchased. Warren. -- With Feudalism, it's your Count that votes.
participants (3)
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Matt Bazan -
Sean Figgins -
Warren Kumari