Potential customers can't be this stupid...

[jinjuku]

We have a SaaS management and billing product. SaaS = hosted = cloud. So you are all with me so far? Great read on:

Potential Customer:
Can you tell me if your application can be purchased and installed our my own web server?


Us:

> Thank your interest in XXXXXXXX. XXXXXX is hosted in our dedicated cloud
> / data center. Let me know when you would like to perform a demo
>
> Best regards,


Potential Customer:

Is your data centre in the US or Canada?

Thx,

(*so I'm thinking what an odd question*)

Us:
We have data centers in a few countries.


Potential Customer:

Ok, I work for a major hospital in Canada and we normally look for
solutions that are hosting in Canada. If we were to look at your
solution could it be hosting in Canada?

Us:
We have no data centers in Canada.
_______________________________________________________

Really that's the concern? I know people that pay more for their home phone/internet/cable bundle per month than our solution costs.

I fight the urge to email back and let them know that when calling 911 for a life threatening emergency that the numero uno thing that I want to know as part of my due diligence is the country that the ambulance is made in.

Forget about the quality of crew, forget the level of equipment they can bring to bare. Just tell me it's made in Canada, and if so, send it on out.

 

[agarwalro]

I sense Shadow IT at work. "We need to move our business to the Cloud" said someone with a pay grade twice their IT IQ.

 

[panteragstk]

Gotta love the field we're in. Just when you think you've heard it all...surprise!

My first question to you would be "does it do what we want quickly?" If yes, then I'm good. Some people must really have strong loyalty to their country. Or maybe they think that if your data center is based in say india then they will have to talk to "foreigners" on the phone? Who knows.

 

[agarwalro]

Or, perhaps in this case, data security.

 

[jinjuku]

Or, perhaps in this case, data security.

?? Everything is encrypted from Disk to HTTPS to Credit Card Swipe. How does changing the locale improve or impoverish this? I never saw a server moved to Canada magically become more secure.

 

[jinjuku]

I certainly never asked Google, Quickbooks online, Amazon Cloud where their servers are...

 

[agarwalro]

That was /s .

 

[jinjuku]

Thanks for that. And thank goodness for the Steam Vent. It's been a week so far of the stupid questions. Yes there is such a thing as a stupid question. Followed up by the person that doesn't know enough to know the question that they are asking.

 

[Adam]

Are there any legal aspects to this? For example, if a cloud serving company decided to just sell data or shut down the service and keep the data, is it easier to pursue legal action if that company is in your own country?

 

[jinjuku]

Well that would have been a really intelligent question to ask then. The answer is we have multiple data centers in multiple countries with data cross replicated for redundancy. The servers are ours and hosted at major backbones. Even if they pulled the disks arrays out: They are encrypted with our own privately generated keys.

But the real failure in understanding is that we deal globally. There is no freaking way we can have a data center in all 211 countries. It's not the way this works.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

a) Asking this question (Can you tell me if your application can be purchased and installed our my own web server?) for provider of SaaS is inexcusable and clearly indicate incompetency of the potential client.
b) As for location of Data centers, I'll be devil's advocate AND put on a tinfoil hat for a second and assume he would be worried about US government dragnet and surveillance - ergo prefers the data to be outside of US (but then again, Canada being essentially our backyard, hardly qualifies for such potentially "safe" location.... If you are US company you could be forced to give away private keys and make the encryption useless . See Lavabit - They were small enough to fold on matter of principal, but how many did gave away the keys and keep quiet about it?

 

[GO-NAD!]

This may be what concerns the potential customer:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/blog/en/blog/2011/05/10/patriot-act/

As outlined in this blog, the worry is probably overblown. Regardless, some people just "haven't read the memo" and are paranoid about it anyway.

 

[jinjuku]

I understand but it still isn't going to change the fact where we run our data centers. If that is your main criteria for a solution then they are better off being a pain in our competitors side.

 

[avnetguy]

While the first question (saas) is rather funny, the second (location base) might have some legal implications on who can get access to the data via a court order. All the talk lately about govs getting access to all sorts of data has some people spooked.

FWIW, pretty much any tech company that deals with end users gets these kind of questions. I know I've seen my fair share over the years.

 

[Adam]

Related to the customer in this case - I'll admit, I don't know what SaaS is. If I was tasked to get a service set up, I'd probably Google it first, but I wouldn't be overly embarrassed by asking "dumb" questions to a company that is trying to sell me something. I'm a believer in just admitting ignorance up front and getting someone to spoon feed me. I don't need to pretend to be an expert in everything, and I'm old enough that I'm usually comfortable in admitting that I don't know s**t. I don't expect anyone else to know anything that I do. Okay, that's not totally true...when my buddy told me that his early-20s wife who grew up her in Tucson was shocked when he told her the night before that leather was made from cows, I did think that was funny.

 

[tmurnin]

Questions around where data centers are located MAY have something to do with the fact that this is a Canadian health care company, and the Canadian government may require in-country data centers for personal health care data. It may have to do with concerns over data security. It may also indicate a lack of familiarity with the technology/product.

Regardless, always love it when someone combines the words "potential customer" with "stupid." Tends to say a lot more about the selling firm than it does the potential customer....

 

[jinjuku]

Related to the customer in this case - I'll admit, I don't know what SaaS is. If I was tasked to get a service set up, I'd probably Google it first, but I wouldn't be overly embarrassed by asking "dumb" questions to a company that is trying to sell me something.

The issue is the guy is from the IT department.

 

[jinjuku]

While the first question (saas) is rather funny, the second (location base) might have some legal implications on who can get access to the data via a court order. All the talk lately about govs getting access to all sorts of data has some people spooked.

FWIW, pretty much any tech company that deals with end users gets these kind of questions. I know I've seen my fair share over the years.

Anyone that believes where the data is hosted in Western countries and the courts... It's a red herring.

 

[Adam]

The issue is the guy is from the IT department.

Well, employee qualifications vary from company to company, and business to business. Plus, the person could have been an intern or temp that got asked to help out the IT department that day, right? Of course, if the person claimed to be an IT Superguru, then I'm right there with you.

 

[jinjuku]

Regardless, always love it when someone combines the words "potential customer" with "stupid." Tends to say a lot more about the selling firm than it does the potential customer....

When I came on as president the first thing I did is to make sure we have the ability to qualify customers. This one can already go away. What this says about the our firm is we need reasonable and equitable exchanges of business. From unreasonable requests to host a data center for one customer in one particular country to customers that seem to feel the only one that can sit at the table and eat is only them.

It's worked out really well for the past 13 years.

Yes potential customers can be stupid.