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But wouldn't winning devs be a neat helping point in winning b2b contacts? Or they think golf courts are enough for success? Okay they might be right here, but

by soco 7mo ago

But wouldn't winning devs be a neat helping point in winning b2b contacts? Or they think golf courts are enough for success? Okay they might be right here, but still they make it so confusing for no obvious reason.

newswasboring 7mo ago
To me it's obvious because the size of companies they are targeting (ASML being an obvious one). I think golf course marketing works well in the EU context when decisions are being made not purely on tech reasons.
- sofixa 7mo ago
  > I think golf course marketing works well in the EU context when decisions are being made not purely on tech reasons. It's not like b2b sales is more technical merit based, individual contributor led, elsewhere. It's always the same, depending on the field individual contributors can have some flexibility on picking tools (so a developer in a mid sized company would be able to pick whatever, an accountant probably would be more constrained, meanwhile a developer at a big bank would not have any choice). But for strategic software choices, that impact the whole company, where standardisation makes sense or is even mandatory to get actual value out of it, you need to sell to high level decision makers, not individual contributors. A CTO or a VP of X can decide to buy and mandate the implementation of something as impactful, workflow changing and potentially time and money saving as a company wide AI platform. A dev can't.
- wqaatwt 7mo ago
  > being made not purely on tech reasons. As if that’s not true in the US (not just government contracts but VC in general as well)…
MidnightRider39 7mo ago
In my experience devs rarely have anything to say in B2B contracts. At best they can recommend a solution to the decision maker, but in almost all deals i was a part of they didn’t have any influence on the final decision. I wish it were otherwise but alas
- yunwal 7mo ago
  In my experience, this is only true at large companies (say, >200 employees). Which means the large companies of the future will all be taking their business elsewhere.
philipallstar 7mo ago
Also EU protectionism itself might be enough.
- hermanzegerman 7mo ago
  Where is EU protectionist? I feel we are way less protectionist than most other Economic Regions. Including the USA, which are very protectionist but always claim otherwise
  - philipallstar 7mo ago
    Well, if every big company gets a giant EU fine for, say, preinstalling a web browser in an OS, except for EU companies, that could make it easier for the EU companies.
    - sofixa 7mo ago
      Every company would get fined for anticompetitive behaviour, regardless of where are based.
      - wqaatwt 7mo ago
        Well yes, but because there are approximately zero EU tech companies that can be affected by these fines and regulations there is very little political pushback against them. In a certain sense it’s a way for EU to clawback at least a small slice of all that money flowing to the US.
        sofixa 7mo ago
        https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2023/personalised-advertising-french-sa-fined-criteo-eur-40000000_en https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2023/personali...
        hermanzegerman 7mo ago
        Why should there be pushback against antitrust measures? It's what keeps markets alive
lelanthran 7mo ago
> But wouldn't winning devs be a neat helping point in winning b2b contacts? How? The largest providers that are trying to win devs are locked in a competition to get the devs to continue using the models for free! The best way to win B2B contracts is to solve the problems that plague business, not those that plague devs. The devs are fickle, have no stickiness and will jump providers to the next free provider, to self-hosted, etc. Selling to business using Mistral's approach is, I feel, just a good business plan. "Giving away some credits for free, then making a loss on subscribers" is an absolutely terrible business plan.
R0m41nJosh 7mo ago
As far as I understood the French president is pushing French most valuated companies to use Mistral. There can't be a more to down strategy :)

by soco 7mo ago

newswasboring 7mo ago

To me it's obvious because the size of companies they are targeting (ASML being an obvious one). I think golf course marketing works well in the EU context when decisions are being made not purely on tech reasons.

sofixa 7mo ago
> I think golf course marketing works well in the EU context when decisions are being made not purely on tech reasons. It's not like b2b sales is more technical merit based, individual contributor led, elsewhere. It's always the same, depending on the field individual contributors can have some flexibility on picking tools (so a developer in a mid sized company would be able to pick whatever, an accountant probably would be more constrained, meanwhile a developer at a big bank would not have any choice). But for strategic software choices, that impact the whole company, where standardisation makes sense or is even mandatory to get actual value out of it, you need to sell to high level decision makers, not individual contributors. A CTO or a VP of X can decide to buy and mandate the implementation of something as impactful, workflow changing and potentially time and money saving as a company wide AI platform. A dev can't.
wqaatwt 7mo ago
> being made not purely on tech reasons. As if that’s not true in the US (not just government contracts but VC in general as well)…

MidnightRider39 7mo ago

In my experience devs rarely have anything to say in B2B contracts. At best they can recommend a solution to the decision maker, but in almost all deals i was a part of they didn’t have any influence on the final decision. I wish it were otherwise but alas

yunwal 7mo ago
In my experience, this is only true at large companies (say, >200 employees). Which means the large companies of the future will all be taking their business elsewhere.

philipallstar 7mo ago

Also EU protectionism itself might be enough.

hermanzegerman 7mo ago
Where is EU protectionist? I feel we are way less protectionist than most other Economic Regions. Including the USA, which are very protectionist but always claim otherwise
- philipallstar 7mo ago
  Well, if every big company gets a giant EU fine for, say, preinstalling a web browser in an OS, except for EU companies, that could make it easier for the EU companies.
  - sofixa 7mo ago
    Every company would get fined for anticompetitive behaviour, regardless of where are based.
    - wqaatwt 7mo ago
      Well yes, but because there are approximately zero EU tech companies that can be affected by these fines and regulations there is very little political pushback against them. In a certain sense it’s a way for EU to clawback at least a small slice of all that money flowing to the US.
      - sofixa 7mo ago
        https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2023/personalised-advertising-french-sa-fined-criteo-eur-40000000_en https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2023/personali...
      - hermanzegerman 7mo ago
        Why should there be pushback against antitrust measures? It's what keeps markets alive

lelanthran 7mo ago

> But wouldn't winning devs be a neat helping point in winning b2b contacts? How? The largest providers that are trying to win devs are locked in a competition to get the devs to continue using the models for free! The best way to win B2B contracts is to solve the problems that plague business, not those that plague devs. The devs are fickle, have no stickiness and will jump providers to the next free provider, to self-hosted, etc. Selling to business using Mistral's approach is, I feel, just a good business plan. "Giving away some credits for free, then making a loss on subscribers" is an absolutely terrible business plan.

R0m41nJosh 7mo ago

As far as I understood the French president is pushing French most valuated companies to use Mistral. There can't be a more to down strategy :)