Losing deals sucks!

[proactivens]

I lost a huge deal today. sucks bad

[Mathiau]

what did you lose it to ?

[gotkimchi]

about 5 years ago, when I was a Cisco account manager, resellers could register the deal/opportunity. As long as you register the deal/opportunity first, Cisco could provide some protection/discount. However, if the customer wanted to go with the other reseller, there is nothing that Cisco could do.

[proactivens]

I lost it to Tangent, an Untangle OEM partner.

I developed the sale. They had no idea what untangle was or could do when I first spoke to them. After a month of quoting and sales "engineering" I had a signed PO. We were waiting for the new budget for the 2010-2011 school year so they could pay for the appliance we were putting together for their school. 6000 users. Education standard package.

Then, out of the blue "tangent" comes in with its "webhawk" product, under cuts my quote to BELOW MY FRICKING COST, and sells them on a single quad core "appliance" with 8gb of ram, so on and so forth. Our quote was for a dual quad xeon appliance. Of course "webhawk" will be cheaper, their getting half the hardware.

So tangent stole the sale that I developed and there isnt anything I can do about it.

[pirateghost]

wow, i just looked them up. i wasnt aware that you could rebrand untangle to that extent....i mean...nowhere does it mention untangle....

[sky-knight]

Umm... If they can drop below our cost, I think it's time we reevaluated the reseller program. OEM deal or not, we have to be able to compete.

Granted they sold them weaker hardware. Do you have numbers on the software itself?

Any details you care to publish? We peon normal resellers apparently are going to have to deal with this too.

[mozerd]

I lost it to Tangent, an Untangle OEM partner.

So tangent stole the sale that I developed and there isnt anything I can do about it.

Untangle has a moral obligation to protect you -- if they do not take that obligation seriously then You have other options that you should discuss with your legal counsel. IF I was in your shoes I would simply drop Untangle in favor of some other solution. In view of your experience I will re-evaluate my relationship.

Why Pay 3 Times as Much?

[JasonJoel]

Well, I would suggest that might be SLIGHTLY reactionary... If there is really a disparity in OEM versus partner pricing, that should be just be discussed privately with Untangle (forums aren't an appropriate place for that discussion).

No need to start with the threats of dropping products, etc. Just my opinion.

Jason

[dwasserman]

Where is the OEM link disclaimer or pricing list with requirements?

[sky-knight]

Jason I would normally agree with you, but historically Untangle has wanted things both ways in their reseller arrangements. I understand why...

Of course at the end of the day Untangle is competing with itself now, which is always an odd situation to be in. Technically Untangle lost this sale too.

Also, in before the thread is destroyed. Because a google for Untangle and OEM lands this page on the 3rd entry. Nothing like a bit of salt.