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I keep getting badgered by GCP channel partners to move over to GCP. One guy once said if I can show him our AWS usage he can give me exact configuration in GCP

by yashg 3y ago

I keep getting badgered by GCP channel partners to move over to GCP. One guy once said if I can show him our AWS usage he can give me exact configuration in GCP and cost would be 20-25% less. I was intrigued so I shared. He came back with a price estimate higher than our AWS bill! I haven't entertained them ever since.

neilv 3y ago
They lost a sale, but they got competitive data. Maybe that's how that salesperson or their org thinks?
- nordsieck 3y ago
  > Maybe that's how that salesperson or their org thinks? Nah - it's just a numbers game. Sometimes they'll be wrong; that's a dead end. Sometimes they'll be right. And some of those times, they'll make a sale.
  - neilv 3y ago
    Given how hard it is to do enterprise sales as a startup vendor, it's disappointing to think of some salesperson, repping a big brand, just doing a "numbers game" drive-by spray, and seeing what they hit.
    - yashg 3y ago
      Cloud platforms are very much commoditized with all of them offering same core products at similar price points. Just different fancy names. Also shifting a cloud provider completely is not worth the small savings in most cases. So these days they don't pitch you to move entirely, they ask you to consider their platform for any upcoming projects. One more trick used by channel partners it to move the billing under their name instead of billing directly with the platform. They promise to give a % of the commission they will receive from the platform back to customer. So they promise savings that way. They also promise to optimise your cloud infra, shut down unused instances, downsize some services that are not fully utilised and getting reserved instances for ones which are not yet on reserve. And for some companies it does end up with significant cost savings without actually switching the provider.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    I don't see how? Assuming yashg has long term memory and will talk to coworkers and other acquaintences in the future about this topic, the one case of being duped will lead to hundreds of potential customers being more skeptical of GCP in the future. The one missed sale here undermines the future prospects of hundreds of possible sales.
    - hansvm 3y ago
      That's true for GCP as a whole, but for that one salesperson the numbers probably do still make sense.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> One guy once said if I can show him our AWS usage he can give me exact configuration in GCP and cost would be 20-25% less. I was intrigued so I shared. He came back with a price estimate higher than our AWS bill! Now I have to know more! Did you call him on it? Did he have any sort of explanation/excuse?
- yashg 3y ago
  I did call him out. He knew he was not making the sale on price factor so he became nonchalant. Yeah, this is what it will cost you on GCP. I think he had given up.
aledalgrande 3y ago
I know that some of the same "partners" try to convert bigger companies/department with the promise of building something custom for them on top of GCP so that they can transition quickly out of AWS. What they don't say though is that after you are on GCP you are going to get zero engineers to support that custom product (because it doesn't get them a promo) and you are left to deal with spaghetti.

by yashg 3y ago

neilv 3y ago

They lost a sale, but they got competitive data. Maybe that's how that salesperson or their org thinks?

nordsieck 3y ago
> Maybe that's how that salesperson or their org thinks? Nah - it's just a numbers game. Sometimes they'll be wrong; that's a dead end. Sometimes they'll be right. And some of those times, they'll make a sale.
- neilv 3y ago
  Given how hard it is to do enterprise sales as a startup vendor, it's disappointing to think of some salesperson, repping a big brand, just doing a "numbers game" drive-by spray, and seeing what they hit.
  - yashg 3y ago
    Cloud platforms are very much commoditized with all of them offering same core products at similar price points. Just different fancy names. Also shifting a cloud provider completely is not worth the small savings in most cases. So these days they don't pitch you to move entirely, they ask you to consider their platform for any upcoming projects. One more trick used by channel partners it to move the billing under their name instead of billing directly with the platform. They promise to give a % of the commission they will receive from the platform back to customer. So they promise savings that way. They also promise to optimise your cloud infra, shut down unused instances, downsize some services that are not fully utilised and getting reserved instances for ones which are not yet on reserve. And for some companies it does end up with significant cost savings without actually switching the provider.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  I don't see how? Assuming yashg has long term memory and will talk to coworkers and other acquaintences in the future about this topic, the one case of being duped will lead to hundreds of potential customers being more skeptical of GCP in the future. The one missed sale here undermines the future prospects of hundreds of possible sales.
  - hansvm 3y ago
    That's true for GCP as a whole, but for that one salesperson the numbers probably do still make sense.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

> One guy once said if I can show him our AWS usage he can give me exact configuration in GCP and cost would be 20-25% less. I was intrigued so I shared. He came back with a price estimate higher than our AWS bill! Now I have to know more! Did you call him on it? Did he have any sort of explanation/excuse?

yashg 3y ago
I did call him out. He knew he was not making the sale on price factor so he became nonchalant. Yeah, this is what it will cost you on GCP. I think he had given up.

aledalgrande 3y ago

I know that some of the same "partners" try to convert bigger companies/department with the promise of building something custom for them on top of GCP so that they can transition quickly out of AWS. What they don't say though is that after you are on GCP you are going to get zero engineers to support that custom product (because it doesn't get them a promo) and you are left to deal with spaghetti.