I both agree and disagree. I agree that the put-downs are a bit
excessive (I laughed more than once 
), but I disagree with
the "sale trolls" comment.
UltraDNS's sales staff *does not* have to behave like this.
"Guerrilla" marketing is not an effective way of selling a
product, nor does it help establish an initial "good impression"
of a vendor, regardless of who they are, or what their track
record is. In fact, at least when it comes to me, the less
aggressive a salesman is, the better chance he/she has of selling
me whatever it is they're selling. (In general, they're best off
not contacting me in any way, instead letting me come to them
if I spawn interest in their services.)
Based purely on the OP's description, it sounds as if UltraDNS is
bordering on unsolicited telemarketing. This should really be
reported to both someone within UltraDNS's mid-tier or upper
management; their sales tactic reflects very badly on the company
as a whole (this entire NANOG thread is proof of that; chances are
many of us now have a lesser opinion of UltraDNS than we did prior
to the initial post).
If that doesn't work, it's time to talk to the FCC, who may do
nothing. But they would be more than willing to tell you if there
have been previous complaints about UltraDNS's solicitations.
Like someone else said, I both agree and disagree.
I agree that the OT thread has probably gone on long enough.
I disagree with your implied assertion that because "[UltraDNS] contributes to NANOG so much" that they deserve a bye. Scummy business practices are scummy business practices. Period. Full-stop. Just because they contribute to an organization doesn't mean that the organization should feel obligated to keep quiet about their misdeeds. It may very well be a "rogue" within their organization causing the problem, but if they're that involved in NANOG then someone is probably being crucified as we speak, and maybe they'll chime in with their side of the story about how they've corrected the problem. If they haven't, then, frankly, this less-than-flattering portrayal of UltraDNS is not entirely undeserved.
Cheers,
D
The volumes are different, but the message is the same when I am called,
there's a claim that we are dropping queries because we use bind, but
the people on the phone can't explain why.
This is a problem when our CTO gets the sales call, as it generates
effort explaining that the company are employing scare tactics.
Thanks for the volume of offlist replies with some good suggestions,
too, everyone - many were very amusing.
Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
Okay, this was fun and I am all for OT fun. But can we please stop putting
down a part of our community? Especially one which contributes to NANOG so
much?
We all have sale trolls to live with.
I both agree and disagree. I agree that the put-downs are a bit
excessive (I laughed more than once 
), but I disagree with
the "sale trolls" comment.
UltraDNS's sales staff *does not* have to behave like this.
Agreed. When I get such calls, the first question I ask is, "Is this a sales call?" If I get an honest "Yes", I'm somewhat more inclined to continue the conversation. If the first thing a salesperson tells me is a lie, game over.
Similarly, any company that spams me selling network equipment or connectivity is clearly way beyond stupid and not one with which I would ever consider doing business.
Yes, this thread is OT to a large extent, but we are network operators. Many of us have sales staff. Educating our own sales people on what not to do is a step towards noise reduction, albeit out-of-band noise as far as this forum is concerned.