Re: New record for sales call?

Paul and all Oracle-L subscribers,

I am a practice manager at IT Convergence. On behalf of ITC, I apologize for your experience with our sales team and I can assure you that no one at ITC will use this list's postings for commercial gain EVER again. This behavior is neither promoted nor allowed, but was an attempt by an inexperienced sales person to identify an opportunity. I have communicated very clearly to our Executive Vice President and President as well as other key managers in the sales team that Oracle-L should never, ever be used as a tool for lead generation. I assure you that my communication to them could not be more clear. (I'm very upset by this event.)

Many of us technologists at ITC have been successful at getting the company to sponsor the community in many ways. For example, we currently host a website for the IOUG used for SIG and local OUG websites (http://ioug.itconvergence.com/) and our consultants offered 14 technical sessions at the Collaborate 07 conference in April. I've been quite active with the IOUG for years and continue to serve as one of the founding board members of the RAC SIG (http://www.oracleracsig.org/). We also have several active consultants in the blogosphere and a few that regularly post to this list as well (though from their private email accounts, so you may not recognize their association with ITC).

So, while I can't blame you for your reaction, please think of a time when one of your associates did something that couldn't have been stopped in advance (since you never saw it coming) and left you having to apologize and "right the wrongs". That's the situation I'm in right now and I do believe that ITC is taking steps to ensure that we communicate the proper ways to use the free resrouces available to the Oracle community. Hopefully, my attempt at swift action will demonstrate the urgency I feel with respect to this issue.

I welcome your feedback either directly to me or to the list. Also, if anyone is going to ODTUG Kaleidoscope at Daytona Beach next week, I'd be glad to take your feedback in person and I'll buy you a beer (well, I'll charge ITC for it) :).

Regards,
Dan Norris
Technology Services Practice Manager
IT Convergence
dannorris_at_dannorris.com
dnorris_at_itconvergence.com

• Original Message ---- From: "Baumgartel, Paul" <paul.baumgartel_at_credit-suisse.com> To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 4:43:57 PM Subject: New record for sales call?

New record for sales call?    

I just got off the phone with a woman from a company called IT Convergence. She called me to say that she had heard I was looking for help with a RAC migration project. At first I couldn't imagine where she had gotten such information--then it dawned on me that I had posted here earlier today asking for opinions about the best way to upgrade 9i RAC to 10g. When I mentioned this, the caller agreed that someone from her company probably was monitoring the list to generate sales leads.

I don't know what the policy of the list is with respect to subscribers using it as a source for sales prospects, but I was sure annoyed.

Paul Baumgartel

CREDIT SUISSE Information Technology

Securities Processing Databases Americas

One Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10010

USA Phone 212.538.1143

paul.baumgartel_at_credit-suisse.com

www.credit-suisse.com

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http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Wed Jun 13 2007 - 21:39:29 CDT