[c-nsp] global.xls?

[Jason Gurtz]

[N.B. I hate these kind of threads, but nonetheless think this is a valid
operational concern]

> Cisco sells through Partners. Part of the money Partners make is
> their own set of pricing which they're freely to define.

This is not always true. For example, I work for a quasi-city-government
agency that can leverage a contract the state has negotiated with Cisco
(fixed % discount off list). There are other outside contracts we could
leverage too. If the price is >$12K we have to buy via the state contract,
go out to bid, or do an RFP (in ascending order of badness). It is illegal
for us to do otherwise; we either get nn.n% off list price or Cisco loses
the sale and our project dies. Suckage all around, for sure.

I'm sure they all attempt to make it up in services since clearly there is
little margin on HW (outside of Cisco themselves anyway).

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I and other customers have presented valid reasons for having list pricing
information, easily available in a self-service way. The evidence (below)
shows this access is very difficult to achieve for a variety of reasons.

BTW, someone replied off-list with another resource; thank you very much
sir! Still, I'd like to see this resolved outside of what I perceive to be
a grey area.

I tried a couple years ago to get direct purchase access added to my CCO
and failed. Now, I tried following through again, having learned here
about the PICA program. One of our partners is CDW-G (government arm of
CDW, Inc.). They are large; you may have heard of them. I've got an
account manager there who has been very helpful in all things for the
6.5ish years I've been here. He had no idea anything like the PICA program
existed prior to my mentioning it. He's been working internally and with
Cisco at my request for about a week now. In the middle of this, an agent
with Profile Management at Cisco confirmed the 4 ways to get list pricing
data [in no particular order and I paraphrase]:

1. Become a partner
2. Get direct purchase access
3. Bother your partner.
4. The PICA Program

As of today I have communication from our account manager stating our only
option with him is #3; he will provide this service as frequently as
monthly, emailing the 13MB file *when I ask*. He also states CDW-G is not
our "Partner of Record," probably because of various deal-making others
here have done during large projects. I give him a lot of credit for
trying to help as the email trail shows his Cisco reps are about as
helpful as our Cisco reps (i.e. not very!). I guess it doesn't help as
much as I thought to be big and platinum coated!

Although he won't say it directly, whomever the Cisco Partner
Administrator is at CDW will not grant us #2 and has determined that the
PICA program grants additional access beyond just pricing information.
They, apparently, have determined these things are not in CDW's best
interest as a profitable entity. Conjecturing, maybe it's the lack of
Partner-of-Record status. Cisco, please address these likely-valid partner
concerns in your tools and programs. Option #3 is like publishing a paper
catalog; it's obsolete. Please fix this.

Asbjorn's earlier "can provide" is certainly not "must provide." I failed
to recognize RFC 2119 applies here ;)

I'm unsure if it is worthwhile to bother our other partner over in Rhode
Island. They are much, much tinier than CDW, probably worsening the odds
of available success outcomes (which I define as #2 or #4). I mentioned
global.xls to our account manager there once a while back and she said,
"what's that?" If I do bother to train and inform them in subjects that
Cisco has not, what should I do if they also refuse to give us access?

~JasonG