Lets say there's two solutions that would solve my end users problem equally well. Both have list prices of 10K, both have normal disty cost of 7K, but brand X is running a promo where I get a 50% off front end discount from disty, but brand y is not.

Now I call the customer up and let them know that not only is brand X the best solution, but because of my great relationship with brand x I've secured them a 20% discount off list.

So now the customer is getting what they need cheaper and I've got more margin in the deal, which is what my commision is calculated out of.

So essentially when vendors do this they're not trying to make things cheaper for the customer to increase demand, they're trying to make sure that their products put the most money in sales people's pockets so that sales people will push their stuff the hardest.

Though on this specific occasion I was following the letter (or lack thereof) of the promotion, but certainly not the spirit. Grabbing existing demand vs generating new demand.

For the kind of executives that stay at a company like Intel, the only thing they care about is the company’s stock price, and they’ll do anything to keep it high, even if it’s at the expense of what quite literally is destroying or directly hemorrhaging in the long term to the company itself. It’s how you end up with crazy situations like this.