Microsoft 'deal factories' fast-track customers to block rivals Microsoft is rolling out "deal factories" run by executives with the power and authority to cut quick deals with customers, so they don't go to rivals. A factory has been created in the UK - and one is understood to exist in the US - with Microsoft's country subsidiaries believed to be rolling out their own factories this year …
"Deal factory"?
Never heard such buzz-word BS in my life.
I've worked for a major multinational company before and it's just a branch of the sales department for large customers. They've all got one, they just don't call it a "deal factory".
I've got a deal proposal for them (inspired by the French): MS stop making such shitty software and I don't blow up their "factory"
We're a bit worried that customers might find our new software irrelevant, and might be beginning to see through our non-existent cost advantage, so lets really cut some good deals to distract them and maybe will drive some competition out of business so that once the economy picks up, we can really turn the screw.
Nothing like a recession to make you look really closely at the Microsoft monopoly.
Just plain old "Cut-throat Competition" with a new name.
Per Wikipedia, "Cut-throat competition, also known as destructive or ruinous competition, refers to situations when competition results in prices that do not chronically or for extended periods of time cover costs of production, particularly fixed costs. This may arise in secularly declining or "sick" industries with high levels of excess capacity or where frequent cyclical or random demand downturns are experienced."
Sick? Well, yeah.
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Deal factories? This is just a crap, made up name for the age old practice of the car dealer saying, "just a second, let me see if my sales manager will approve this." Then he goes in the back room and tells his buddies what an idiot you are for a few minutes, then comes back out and lies to you some more.
There is no deal and there is no factory, there is just another dishonest saleman overcharging the customer by the maximum he will bear.
"Sick industries" seems fairly apt. A titanic battle between a massive monopoly and a few people trying to give away software for free is a somewhat distorted market. The free software guys are the only ones left standing in a lot of cases because they're the only ones that MS can't drive out of business.
It's quite an inbred market. Heterogeneity would be a goods thing for the users, right now.
I have worked at MS. Deal Factories are not new, they have been going on for ages. And they are basically just a way of organising a regular meeting where non standard deals can be discussed by people senior enough to agree them. Every customer wants a non standard deal, some get approved, some do not. Every sales organissation will have a similar process, irrespective of what they chose to call it.
And as for the rubbish about customers cancelling Enterprise Contracts -errrr - you cannot. Having worked on hundreds and hundreds of such contracts I can assure you that I never saw one cancelled midterm (with the exception of bankruptcies etc). And you should read MS annual reports, there is not an issue around non renewal of Enterprise Contracts, MS signs more and more of them on an annual basis (hint, it is called annuity revenue)
This is a badly researched non story. Still, judging by the comments, at least it suckered in all the 'I hate Microsoft' helpdesk monkeys.....
Course you can cancel. Any contract is adjustable, for a price. Obviously it's in the monopolists interests to maintain the contract at any cost (eg continue the contract at minimal cost to the customer, subject to NDAs etc so word doesn't spread) rather than let it lapse, so if no one ever actually cancels, it's no great surprise. But they could cancel, if they wanted to.
"judging by the comments, at least it suckered in all the 'I hate Microsoft' helpdesk monkeys....."
Do you come here often? anything with Microsoft anywhere near the article will prompt these same "commentators"
For example: "Bill Gates foundation ends world hunger and finds a cure for AIDS"
Example coments
"Thats all well and good but I dont like the ribbon in the new version of office and thats far more evil than world hunger or AIDS!"
"Microsoft are Evil and should be broken up so they cant rip the world off even more"
"They might have found a cure for AIDS but Internet explorer 8 is still a barley compliant POS!"
(You can also substitue Apple for Microsoft, they represent the same to most of the comentators on here :-))
Yeah, the difference between you and me is that I know what I am talking about. The contracts mentioned in this topic are Enterprise Agreements. They are a minimum three year contract. When you sign the contract, you agree to make three annual payments. You are legally bound to make these payments. If you do not, yopu are in breach of contract with all that that entails. You can, of course, try to renegoiate mid term. But MS does not have to renegotiate if they do not want to.
To be fair, MS will of course discuss renegotiating contracts with customers mid agreement. However, this will always be done in the interests of trying to keep customers happy (and on mutually agreeable terms). Customers 'cannot hold a gun to MS's head' by threatening to stop a contract mid term in the same way that you cannot stop paying a bank loan just because you feel like it......
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