Re:What is Google doing with its open source teams?
by helpfulgoogler on Sunday January 29, 2023 @11:31AM
(#34569650)
I think you may be misreading the situation. When Anthos was announced, it didn't exist yet. They didn't have anything to sell you and you weren't important enough to be trusted with that knowledge. In this regard, your comparison was probably apt (especially if you were inquiring about Watson).
Re:What is Google doing with its open source teams?
by acdha on Sunday January 29, 2023 @11:40AM
(#34569781)
Released, not announced - they actually contacted us about it and then ghosted when we asked for a quote. At the very least I’d have expected a simple “we’ll get back to you”.
IBM was similar: we were trying to buy Opteron servers, let our rep know, had a bunch of people show up, ended with them saying they’d send us a quote, no reply to multiple requests. Maybe they weren’t interested in mere 6 figure purchases but they could have said so.
The only company I've ever dealt with which was worse at taking your money was IBM. In both cases, it was eerily similar: you could get a room full of people to do a demo but the salespeople seemed to assume their reputation meant success was inevitable and they didn't have to actually do anything like … eeew … work to close deals. In neither case were we the biggest deal in town but also far from the smallest, and in both cases the experience meant they missed out on larger sales later.