When I was an HP1000 Sys Admin and everything else, we did have a lot of HP3000s at "the plant". Our HP sales guy was the same for both the 1K and the 3K, and was generally highly available to us. I personally talked to him many times a year, and involved him in my budgeting process. Problem was that, as mentioned repeatedly in this list, the systems he sold us WERE highly reliable and not -auto-obsolecent, so in a given year we might not buy any new 3Ks at all. Sometimes we leased them; HP's VAR program killed our Sales rep's commissions, though, and here's how. Even though we didn't buy a lot of new systems, we DID buy a lot of peripherals. Our purchasing department figured out pretty quick that they could buy the peripherals cheaper through the VARs. So, even though we might buy many $100K worth of HP equipment (which the Sales Rep knew we were buying) the Sales Rep would only get an order for a small portion. So, can it not be said, that HP's VAR program pricing structure was a real disincentive for the HP Sales Reps? -Dave Darnell [log in to unmask] on 12/19/2001 07:30:00 AM To: [log in to unmask]@Internet cc: (bcc: David T Darnell/CO/KAIPERM) Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] The Real Story About HP's Announcement... So long as everyone is reminiscing about HP sales people, I may as well put in my US$.02 worth: When we decided to upgrade to a new system about four years ago (actually two new systems) I actually got to talk to an HP sales rep on the phone. For about 30 seconds. Then she realized that we were "only" going to spend about US$100,000 (a *lot* of money to us) and then we, also, were sent to a VAR. Jim Phillips Information Systems Manager Email: [log in to unmask] Therm-O-Link, Inc. Phone: 330-527-2124 P. O. Box 285 Fax: 330-527-2123 10513 Freedom Street Web: http://www.tolwire.com Garrettsville, OH 44231 I WANT MY MPE! * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html * * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *