On 02/09/2011 08:38 PM, George Bonser wrote:
If you're not being heard by your vendor, you're not yelling loud enough.
Or you aren't big enough of a customer. I was at one manufacturer within the past few months and asked about the lack of v6 support at layer 3 in one of their product lines as I had an application for that line but the lack of v6 layer 3 disqualified that solution. I was told that $HUGE_CUSTOMER had placed $HUGE_ORDER and was needing layer 2 features as their highest priority and so that is where they were focusing right now and that layer 3 ipv6 would be out later this year.
They did say that it was getting more difficult to sell the gear without the layer 3 features and that the "real soon now" excuse was having trouble getting any traction with potential customers but right now the largest dollar amount of business hinged on layer 2 features.
That's at least an honest and significant answer. At that point, its up to you whether you're willing to wait. At this point, I'm not willing to, but 2 years ago, I probably would have.
My main point is that, if you're getting answers like, "We don't hear any customers asking about it." then you need to push harder. I found its very easy to ask about IPv6, get that answer, and then ask again in 6 months and still get the same answer. My response then would be, "<explitive>, I asked about it 6 months ago, you're just not paying attention, now get me a product manager on the phone so that I can bend their ear and make sure that I'm heard this time."
-- Jeff
