我们“真的 ”知道自己在说什么吗？



我们“真的 ”知道自己在说什么吗？

Neil Cameron

         

　　作为一名技术顾问——现在也兼作销售、营销专家、物流专家外加普通勤杂工，我和客户交流的时间非常之多。事实上，如果有人打电话问我，“我需要的是哪张卡？”，他们很可能会为此感到懊悔，因为答案从来都不象大家期望的那样简单。

　　“你会推荐哪款硬盘？”之类的问题也会带来同样的结果。这个问题会引出一连串的麻烦，常识告诉我，应该尽可能避而远之——但我的常识显然经常遭受质疑。

　　因此……我的努力方向一直是让大家转向8系列（6G或12Gb/s系统兼容）的控制器，以及适合客户数据需求的SSD。带着这个既定目标，我和许多大型集成商进行过深入交流，他们已经对澳大利亚市场上常见的硬盘进行了大量测试，我的建议从而可以建立在他们的“实际”经验的基础之上。

　　眼下，在澳大利亚，问题的关键不在于“最便宜的RAID卡是什么？”通常的问法是“哪张卡能让系统的速度够快，能让客户满意？”这样的对话颇为有益，因为可以帮助客户思考其客户的存储需求到底是什么，而不是仅仅考虑其底线（虽然底线是个非常、非常重要的考量）。      

　　那么，我的建议会是什么呢？由于我所在地区每个国家的硬盘价格千差万别，所以这个问题的答案对全世界的客户会各不相同。SAS在印度很便宜，而SSD则很昂贵。SAS在澳大利亚很昂贵，而由于SSD在价格、容量及性能上的优势，SSD正全面侵占整个市场。然而，所有因素均考虑在内，我依然发现PMC的8系列控制器及Sandisk的SSD在市场上正迅速窜升。看起来，大家认为15GSAS不大划算（散热、功耗加上成本，而速度并不如何惊人），而SSD在企业级市场则是个不错的选择。

好吧，这些调查对我的销售当然有好处，而且也给了我每日聊天的话题（虽然客户迫不及待地想要赶紧挂上电话），但也让我开始琢磨，这是不是个全球性的现象呢……我想借此机会，向全世界提出这个问题：“你会不会问你的供应商，适合你需求的产品是什么？”　　　

令人啼笑皆非的是，我发现越来越多的人感到根本无法与供应商交流，而不得不自己上网，在网上努力去芜存菁，试图理解看到的资料，然后自己做出一个明智的选择。

要是问我的意见，两种方法都是无谓的浪费。我可能是老古董了，但我桌子上的电话还是主要拿来打电话（而不是看脸书等），并且，如果我真想要了解某款产品的信息，真正的交谈还是十分有效——而不是自己懵懵懂懂地去做一通研究，以为就此可以成为产品的专家。

那么，应该采取什么行动呢？我强烈建议，拿起电话，给我们打个电话。不论你在世界的哪个角落，都能找到对PMC产品懂行的人——从PMC公司内部到代理商到零售渠道商等等，他们都接受过有关PMC产品使用及功能的各种培训。

这个方法比埋头阅读网页要强得多……给我们来个电话吧，一起讨论您的需求——电话号码就在网页上。

 

So we actually “do” know what we are talking about?

As a technical advisor, and now a salesman, marketing expert, logistics expert and general dogsbody I spend a lot of time talking to my customers. In fact if someone rings up asking the question “which card do I need?” they probably end up regretting it because it’s never a short simple answer.

The same goes with “which disk do you recommend?” … that one is a can of worms that common-sense says I should stay away from, but I’ve never been accused of having too much of that commodity.

So …my push has been to move people to Series 8 (6 or 12Gb/s system compatible) controllers, and towards SSDs when they suit the customer’s data needs. With that in mind I’ve talked to a lot of my larger integrators who have done considerable testing on drives that are readily available in the Australian marketplace,and base a lot of my recommendations on their “real-world” experiences.

Nowin Australia the question does not start with “what is your cheapest RAIDcard?”, it generally starts with “what is the right card to make this thing go fast enough so the customer won’t complain?”. That’s a good conversation tohave because it helps my customers think about their customer storage needs,not just the bottom line (though yes, that is still very, very important).

Sowhat do I recommend? This is probably very different for customers across theworld because of the discrepancies in drive prices that we see from country tocountry across my region. SAS is cheap in India, SSD is expensive. SAS isexpensive in Australia and SSD is taking over big time due to price, capacityand performance. However, all that taken into account I’m finding a greatuptake on 8 Series Controllers and Sandisk SSDs (top of the range of course).It seems people are finding that 15K SAS is just not worth it (heat, powerconsumption and cost for not a fantastic speed), and that SSD is a good choicein the enterprise market.

Nowall this is good for my sales and gives me someone to talk to on a daily basis(even if the customer can’t wait to get off the phone), but it makes me wonderwhether this is a worldwide phenomenon … since this is a global blog I’ll askthe question of the worldwide community: “Do you talk to your vendor to askwhat is the right product to suit your needs?”

IronicallyI find more and more people who don’t think they can even talk to the vendor,but rather have to go online and sift through the chaff on websites trying to(a) understand what they are seeing and (b) make sense of it all to come upwith an informed decision.

Asfar as I’m concerned both are a waste of time. I might be old fashioned but themobile phone on my desk is still predominantly used for making phone calls (andnot facebooking, etc), and I still find it useful to actually talk to someoneif I want to find something out about a product – not try and become a productexpert myself with limited idea of what I’m doing.

Sowhat do you do? I’d strongly suggest you pick up the phone and talk to us. Nomatter where you are in the world there will be someone who knows somethingabout our products – from the company directly to our distribution and resellerchannel who are trained in the use and capabilities of our products.

Beatsreading the web (which is ironic because that’s what you are dong while readingthis) … so give us a call and discuss your requirements – the phone numbers areon the web (that’s tongue in cheek).