Damn, does your Sales Department Stink!
I called regarding the quote system that will
use the Sierra AirCard with AT&T cellular
system. First off, you can't access any
extensions from the sales number in your
ad. So I ended up getting a saleperson
waiting an hour for his turn at a new
lead, and as usual, he was pissed as hell
that not only was I just calling for
information, but that it was about a
new system for which he had no clue.
Also, why not tell people about the demo
facilities from MicroAge? Are they up?
Nice to have a demo June 24th, when your
promotional deal runs out just a week
later! Look Chuck, I've admitted in the
past that I love to hate this company,
but give us a break! This new offering
is far to complex to not have a seperate
group from either DBC, ATT, or MicroAge
handling it soup to nuts. The confusion
alone will keep most potential customers
away.
Also, the model of push in this application
may be ill conceived. Take an busy person
who wants to get his real time quotes. So
he flips up his notebook which was in sleep
mode, and has to now keep it on for God knows
how long till your push technology sends a
new trade to update the screen with the latest
quote. Since you are using a two way cellular
system ANYWAY, you must have a pull offering
as well, so that the person can hit an "update"
button on the toolbar, and the application then
PULLs the more recent quotes off your service.
Expecting people to leave their computers on
when they are expecting a true portable solution
is ludicrous, IMHO.
What you people SHOULD be doing, is providing
a cellular push service that actually works
with the phones people already carry, like
the Nokia 9000. Instead of using the currently
available pull system where customers pay .30
cents per request, they would get their quotes
pushed to the phone WHILE IT IS ON STANDBY.
Then, you could just flip open the screen
and there are all your latest numbers waiting
for you. Now THAT would be worth something,
and the technology is already available in
most Dual system phones to accomplish this.
Some may ask, why am I airing this on a public
investors forum, well the answer is from DBCC's
history. 3 years ago when DBCC ventured fourth
onto the internet, it billed itself as one of
the best and first in the industry. Needless
to say, after falling 9 months behind on it's
abitious offerings, many competitors had by
then crept into the market, undermining DBCC
considerably, and the stock sufferred accordingly.
Now we see this initiative into the cellular
market, and while I applaud the effort, I
would warn investors not to consider this a
significant new revenue stream until it's
already quite clear that they have succeeded.
This cellular initiative can be easially
duplicated by other providers, just like
their internet offering was. DBCC suffers
from the mentality that since they owned
the FM distribution of push quote for so
long, and in so many places, that they can
duplicate that effort over other mediums.
What they continue to fail to realize, is
they are playing in mediums with which they
have no exclusive rights to anymore, and must
provide initiatives in for their data on
these new mediums that are far superior
to anything on their competitors drawing
boards. This new wireless offering falls
far short of the mark given what they
could have done if they had been much
more visionary, and much less greedy.
I genuinely look forward to your
rebuttle, since between your web
site, and phone support, nobody
seems to know what's going on.
I'm especially interested in what
MicroAge did to determine which
notebooks would works or not. To
leave out the Toshiba Liberetto
from the equipment lineup was a
fatal mistake, as it's the smallest
Win'95 computer available right
now, and a natural choice for this
cellular wireless service. I would
personally prefer the Protoge's
or Thinkpad 560's, but that's for
people who do other things with their
notebooks. For the pure quote request
customer, Liberetto is all they need. |
