Re: Ada vendors and the art of selling used cars

[byhoe@greenlime.com (Adrian Hoe)]

Reivilo Snuved <odevuns@iname.JUNK.com> wrote in message news:<st7kvy4p0b.fsf@aonix.fr>...
> "McDoobie" <chris@dont.spam.me> writes:
> [snip]
> > 
> > I'm checking around for a good Ada development environment, and I wouldnt
> > mind picking up a copy of GNAT Pro or the Aonix toolchain. But "contact
> > our sales rep" is irritating as hell.
> 
> NOTE : I am posting this message on behalf of Greg Gicca, Director of Product 
>        Management with Aonix (his newsserver is currently down) 
> 
> Chris,
> 
> We at Aonix have specific published prices and discount policies that
> can not be varied from by a sales person or other employee without
> approval from a VP or higher.  We do not publish prices due to legal
> and country reasons.  The legal aspects tend to be that any price
> published is only valid when published and can change at any time.
> Thus publishing it in a public forum puts out prices that could be
> misleading.  Also a price for a particular country may have
> adjustments due to shipping or other concerns.  Secondly our prices
> for a particular currency are based on the exchange rate at the time
> of sale (quote).  Our fixed price schedule is based on US dollars (we
> have to pick one currency).  The daily price in French Francs, or even
> the Euro will vary.
> 
> When Aonix produces a quote for a particular product or set of
> products it is very common for the purchasing agency to ask for the
> relevant pages from our product catalog that list these prices, and
> discount policies.  We can not vary from the prices or policies as
> stated above.  We in fact "never" want to be the position of having
> one representative quote a different price from another company
> representative, regardless of geographic region or country location
> (taking into account specific country differences, currency, etc.)
> 
> Any price quote you thus receive from Aonix from one individual will
> be the same quote you would get from any other.  Used car type pricing
> tactics are against our (and most other) Ada company policies.  If you
> ask us for a price for a product it will be that published in our
> product catalog.  If you ask for discount policies it will also be
> that published in the product catalog and will clearly show that a
> larger quantity purchase would save money on per product costs.
> 
> The one exception to our publishing prices is the ObjectAda Special
> Edition product.  It is published as being for free as a download from
> or web site, at:
> 
> http://www.aonix.com
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Greg Gicca
> Aonix
> Director of Product Management
> 
> adamark@sd.aonix.no.spam.com


I totally agree with Greg. My company Lexical Integration is Aonix's
distributor and business partner in Malaysia. Local pricing varies
from US pricing and almost from project to project.

But, IMHO, e-mail is a very convenient way to ask for quotes and I
believe vendors will respond to e-mail inquiry almost instantly.

I don't see why and how without publishing the prices on web sites
will deter people from using Ada.

Adrian Hoe