Unbelievable

A system designed to fail often will. Seen this a few times this past week. In one case, someone agrees that we we do and our machines have value, but want our stuff without paying us for our stuff. They don’t want to buy them. They just want us to tell them how to build them. They don’t want to buy our stuff, even though we’ve demonstrated that our systems solve their problem. In another case, someone has a problem that our machines solve very well, but they don’t want to buy them. Instead, they want us to help them design systems they will deploy. They provide their requirements which we can meet, and then constrain us to use specifications that cannot work. They don’t want to buy our stuff, even though we’ve demonstrated that our systems solve their problem. Notice the pattern? In one case, its a simple failure for the person to arrive at a proper conclusion. They recognize the value. In the other case, its a combination of several factors, but the constraints on what we can do, into a non-functional design space, are giving us enough pause that we are seriously considering bowing out of the consulting process. We won’t misrepresent reality to our customers. We will tell them when something is wrong. And they can either ignore us and continue, or listen to us and think about it. I just don’t like the concept of taking money from a customer to work on a project which will fail. That seems like a waste, and it seems dishonest to me. I’ve got to make a decision whether to fish or cut bait on the second one. First one is easy, customer thinks we are rude for pointing out that there is nothing we can do for them until they decide they want our stuff and are willing to pay for it. Its in both of their self interests to purchase solutions from us. They are acting out of something contrary to their own self interest.