The solution is not to turn your consultants in to sales people, or to attempt to coerce them into becoming an extension of sales.
As others have pointed out, this is how it works everywhere in the industry.
If you are a product company, and you have a consulting staff, you don't "pollute" them by having them also overtly serve the sales organization, you use them as your "feet on the ground" to gather intel about what is going on inside the customer account and to help you figure out how to best align your (sales) goals with what the customer is doing. A good sales person does not ask the people in the field to compromise themselves as trusted advisors to the customer, but they will try to figure out what is going on in the account in order to make the best pitch to the customer.
Easy.
What makes this sound like it won't be so easy for the OP is that he claims to work for an "IT consulting firm" not a product company. If you have a sales staff, like it or not, you're working a product company.
The problem is the iPhone is like the only phone in existence right now with a soldered-in battery. Most people aren't going to have it occur to them to check on that until it's a problem. And since that's roughly a year or two away...
And yet he filed a lawsuit after the product has been out just over a month.... Maybe he's from the future, send here to warn us of iPhone battery failures and SkyNet?
Naturally, the Anonymous Coward deleted the context of my response, so let me restore it:
The way I see it, the creationists have about 0.000001% chance of being completely right, the evolutionists have about a 30% chance of being completely right.
To which I said:
Of course, the probabilities you assign are derived from hard science, right?
Which then caused this rant:
I've seen as much proof to the existence of the Abrahamic god as I've seen proof of the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Meanwhile, I've seen much supporting evidence for evolution.
Which of course is based on even harder science.
Let's not turn Darwinism in to a new religion with its own close-minded zealots -- but if you're going to make claims, then don't be like your "opponents" -- back it up with science.
If you can't, don't just fall in to an apoplectic rage and begin spouting about how everyone else is wrong. You'll start to sound like one of those fundamentalists, with the only difference that you've got a poster of Darwin and an evolution fish on your car.
At this rate, with all the vitriol on this topic, it's only a matter of time before followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster start beheading hostages...:-)
The way I see it, the creationists have about 0.000001% chance of being completely right, the evolutionists have about a 30% chance of being completely right.
Of course, the probabilities you assign are derived from hard science, right?
Religion has been unhelpful and downright hostile to scientific progress.
Various scientific communities have been unhelpful and downright hostile to scientific progress throughout history. Being an obstacle to progress is not the unique province of religion.
Most Java applet developers weren't savvy enough to defer the loading of all the classes that make up their applet, much less to load them in the background. These problems are inherent to every remote application delivery platform, even Flash/Flex.
Perhaps your memory of slow load times in Java has more to do with the fact that you were probably using a 28.8 modem to connect to AOL back then, and now you've got a Comcast cable modem?
Maybe Rolling Stone is defending their turf. After all, far too many techie websites seem to have lost their focus and are more interested in postings about iPods and music than about "News for Nerds" or "Stuff That Matters".
My friend Bill and I made a serious study of this several years ago. We had a blinded pair-wise taste test of beers, which included all premium beers available in cans in Sna Antonio, some 16 brands at the time. These were poured by Bill's wife Linde into identical chilled mugs and the tasters were blinded.
Wow! I've heard of people being blinded by grain alcohol, but I've never heard of a microbrew so strong that it blinded tasters!:-)
No it's not. A Mac is a proprietary piece of hardware connected to a proprietary OS (albeit built with standardized and component parts in both) that is made exclusively by Apple (barring the clone years).
Three faults to what you're saying:
Macs are now using bog-standard Intel CPUs, graphics subsystems, and can even run Windows.
Sony, in no way, is providing an "open standard" that other manufacturers can leverage. Hmmm, sounds like that would be proprietary by definition. The PC platform has a "standard" that everyone has to walk lockstep on, courtesy of the Microsoft DirectX APIs. Older equipment can't support the new APIs and is not supported. Of course, with Microsoft as the sole provider of the APIs, well... that's a standard only in the sense that Microsoft is a 900 lbs. gorilla making the standard.
Finally, given the need for hardware vendors (such as NVidia and ATI in the graphics card market) to differentiate themselves, it's entirely possible that when one leapfrogs the other, there can be a signficant difference between the vendors' products regardless of API compatbility. So there is not market pressure to provide such a standard.
That said, it'd be nice from a developer's standpoint, but keep this in mind -- game developers are extremely resilient and seem to handle the differentiation on the PC platform well. And when they don't, the gaming community seems to spend the $$$ to upgrade and build new systems to run the games.
The mini is Apple's entry level machine. Price is its single most important feature.
True. But that's in comparison to other Apple computers -- running Mac OS X. I don't think the low-end Mini will ever go as cheap as a "comparable" Dell.
The reader you linked doesn't support CompactFlash. A CF card is physically too large to fit in an ExpressCard/34. If there is ever a CF reader for the MacBook, it will necessarily be external. And this is not an optional feature for me, I need a CF reader to get the photos off my camera without waiting a month for them to be transferred over the USB port.
Perhaps you've been scarred by transferring photos at USB 1.0/1.1 data rates. You do realize that USB 2.0 card readers exist, and can transfer the images from the camera that much faster, right?
Of course, if you're still using a six year old Powerbook, I'm guessing you still have a one-megapixel camera.:-)
I'm a former Atari ST user... and I have fond memories of MagicSac and Spectre GCR, though I couldn't afford one at the time (I was just a broke teenager).
Anyways, back on topic -- I suspect everyone is going to exhaust trying to hack XP on to one of the new Intel Macs via software before going the hardware route.
First of all, you are all up in my grill, postin' some lame shiznit 'bout wanting to run some pi-sizzled games on a Mac. Then you come outta nowhere with some SQL Server stuff.
So I pimp-slapped with some O-to-the-Rackel, and now y'all come back some weakness, talkin' 'bout you gots no cash for a database. You givin' me some line about no cash when I bet you're rollin's on 22s, pushin' up on the honeys in a fine ride, but you're gonna act like you can't pay The Big E.
Nerdie, please.
Did I not send you a link to download a free copy of Oracle for Mac OS X server?
Are you hating the game?
Don't front on me...
Anyways I can't be mad at you... we's cool.. but just so's you know... I know you're frontin', 'cause we both know the Mac can do enterprise: J2EE (even WebLogic),
Of course, if you just want to player-hate the Mac, be my guest. But I hope you realize that most of the compelling open source software also runs on Mac OS X, right?
Slashdot Mirror
The solution is not to turn your consultants in to sales people, or to attempt to coerce them into becoming an extension of sales.
As others have pointed out, this is how it works everywhere in the industry.
If you are a product company, and you have a consulting staff, you don't "pollute" them by having them also overtly serve the sales organization, you use them as your "feet on the ground" to gather intel about what is going on inside the customer account and to help you figure out how to best align your (sales) goals with what the customer is doing. A good sales person does not ask the people in the field to compromise themselves as trusted advisors to the customer, but they will try to figure out what is going on in the account in order to make the best pitch to the customer.
Easy.
What makes this sound like it won't be so easy for the OP is that he claims to work for an "IT consulting firm" not a product company. If you have a sales staff, like it or not, you're working a product company.
If "living hard" had guaranteed consequences, he wouldn't be playing gigs...
To which I said:
Which then caused this rant:
Which of course is based on even harder science.
Let's not turn Darwinism in to a new religion with its own close-minded zealots -- but if you're going to make claims, then don't be like your "opponents" -- back it up with science.
If you can't, don't just fall in to an apoplectic rage and begin spouting about how everyone else is wrong. You'll start to sound like one of those fundamentalists, with the only difference that you've got a poster of Darwin and an evolution fish on your car.
At this rate, with all the vitriol on this topic, it's only a matter of time before followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster start beheading hostages... :-)
load "*", 8, 1
Various scientific communities have been unhelpful and downright hostile to scientific progress throughout history. Being an obstacle to progress is not the unique province of religion.
Perhaps your memory of slow load times in Java has more to do with the fact that you were probably using a 28.8 modem to connect to AOL back then, and now you've got a Comcast cable modem?
Maybe Rolling Stone is defending their turf. After all, far too many techie websites seem to have lost their focus and are more interested in postings about iPods and music than about "News for Nerds" or "Stuff That Matters".
Wow, you got that one so wrong that I bet you would have to Google it to find out what "OPP" stands for...
:-)
And no, it's not "Other People's Patents".
Wow, I just typed "Option-c" on my Mac to do the same thing... ç
Imagine if every time you successfully overclocked a CPU, Intel or AMD asked for more money! :-)
Well, that only happens when T-Rex is hanging with Dromiceiomimus and Utahraptor. :-)
Wow! I've heard of people being blinded by grain alcohol, but I've never heard of a microbrew so strong that it blinded tasters! :-)
- Macs are now using bog-standard Intel CPUs, graphics subsystems, and can even run Windows.
- Sony, in no way, is providing an "open standard" that other manufacturers can leverage. Hmmm, sounds like that would be proprietary by definition. The PC platform has a "standard" that everyone has to walk lockstep on, courtesy of the Microsoft DirectX APIs. Older equipment can't support the new APIs and is not supported. Of course, with Microsoft as the sole provider of the APIs, well... that's a standard only in the sense that Microsoft is a 900 lbs. gorilla making the standard.
- Finally, given the need for hardware vendors (such as NVidia and ATI in the graphics card market) to differentiate themselves, it's entirely possible that when one leapfrogs the other, there can be a signficant difference between the vendors' products regardless of API compatbility. So there is not market pressure to provide such a standard.
That said, it'd be nice from a developer's standpoint, but keep this in mind -- game developers are extremely resilient and seem to handle the differentiation on the PC platform well. And when they don't, the gaming community seems to spend the $$$ to upgrade and build new systems to run the games.OMG! THIS IS SO KEWL!
True. But that's in comparison to other Apple computers -- running Mac OS X. I don't think the low-end Mini will ever go as cheap as a "comparable" Dell.
Perhaps you've been scarred by transferring photos at USB 1.0/1.1 data rates. You do realize that USB 2.0 card readers exist, and can transfer the images from the camera that much faster, right?
Of course, if you're still using a six year old Powerbook, I'm guessing you still have a one-megapixel camera. :-)
Dave,
I'm a former Atari ST user... and I have fond memories of MagicSac and Spectre GCR, though I couldn't afford one at the time (I was just a broke teenager).
Anyways, back on topic -- I suspect everyone is going to exhaust trying to hack XP on to one of the new Intel Macs via software before going the hardware route.
First of all, you are all up in my grill, postin' some lame shiznit 'bout wanting to run some pi-sizzled games on a Mac. Then you come outta nowhere with some SQL Server stuff.
So I pimp-slapped with some O-to-the-Rackel, and now y'all come back some weakness, talkin' 'bout you gots no cash for a database. You givin' me some line about no cash when I bet you're rollin's on 22s, pushin' up on the honeys in a fine ride, but you're gonna act like you can't pay The Big E.
Nerdie, please.
Did I not send you a link to download a free copy of Oracle for Mac OS X server?
Are you hating the game?
Don't front on me...
Anyways I can't be mad at you... we's cool.. but just so's you know... I know you're frontin', 'cause we both know the Mac can do enterprise: J2EE (even WebLogic),
Of course, if you just want to player-hate the Mac, be my guest. But I hope you realize that most of the compelling open source software also runs on Mac OS X, right?
If he gets seven hours on a full charge, he must not be using it. The longest I've ever seen my 17" Powerbook go was about 4 1/2 hours.
When it comes to Slashdot predictions, who can forget this one?
Set up a computer just for games and don't play Sony/BMG CDs or any other DRM'd media on it.
And if you need to do any real computing, using a Linux or Mac box. :-)