Bon jour, Denis,

>Hello John,
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>>Internally, we are constantly educating our peers on the product. I can't count the number of times I (or others) have extolled the virtues of VFP to other MS employees. I also can't count the number of times Ken Levy has gone ape when hearing that an MS employee has said something dismissive or inaccurate about VFP and he sends corrective email.
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>I don't want to upset you John by questioning the way things works internally but I can't imagine that MS have'nt solved that problem.
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>Should'nt it be an overall line of conduct to not speak about a product if you don't know it. And if you know that you'll have to talk about a product should'nt you make sure that you'll have the right information.

In a perfect world, yes, you would be correct. But field reps and marketers get caught off-guard with these questions when they're looking to sell Windows seats or whatnot. I mean, we're a big company and not everyone is on message all the time about all products.

>I understand that for a sales rep, or whatever the title used, it would be impossible to have the details to all products but I guess that there are many kinds of sales rep. So in short if a sales rep job is to talk about development products then I guess that it's not an impossible task to have the right information about Visual Studio, VFP...

Again correct. Since we don't hear about the right info being told, we don't know what the ratio is.

>Here's a little help for you guys. Perhaps you should have a repository where the right information is stored. When a sales rep has to speak about a product then he'll know that the information needed will be in that repository.

We do have an internal VFP website with information in minute detail. I repeat: Most of the incidents I refer to are spur-of-the-moment where the rep is caught in the field without the most current information.

>You should probably have a wall of shame for all of those that gave bad information to potential customers. That kind of award would be given to those that did'nt give the information according to what was specified in the repository.
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>Put the wall in the main entrance where every MS employees can see the offenders when they get in every morning.
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>You can privately email me to know where to send the cheque for those close to invaluable advices <vbg>

LOL...Not a bad idea but probably unworkable in a company this large and diverse.