Pricing is not Social

It seems of late that a number of companies are very public, very social, very internet and web, yet very private about pricing.

What is it about price that makes companies hide behind their BS captcha's that are the "send us your information and we will get back to you with a quote" type?

On one hand, marketing says we need leads, services says each customer is different we can't possibly price it properly. On the other hand, we as a company want to be open, honest and above board with our customers.

Which are you? Which is it? Naturally there is a difference between a license MSRP and a services need but one might think these companies are safe guarding gold the way they act about their price.

If you worry about price, then you have no concept of the sales process. If you do your job correctly, then price, unless you are WAY OUT THERE, is rarely an issue.

Are you afraid your competition will find out? Hello 1950, what is this the Cold War? Your competition knows what you charge or how you bill, maybe not exactly but roughly.

Numerous examples exist, pick almost any company offering products online, not retail, but even there you get that "price available when in your cart" BS. I know, there are legal reasons to do that but still, that is just lame.

In my view this comes down to a silo mentality versus an open collaborative mentality. The open collaborative side does not worry about letting you know the price because their honesty is their integrity. If price really matters to you above all else, then they probably do not want you as a customer anyway.

The silo company has too many levels of "insert some euphemism" to be open and honest with anyone because in their world of CYA it is all about being safe, sound and hold back something from the customer. Old time sales tactic, make them ask me how much feels so great to me to be in control. Ugh. The reality is the power is not yours, by withholding the price, it is mine by ignoring you entirely.


Could social be leveraged to provide a more fluid pricing, similar to how much a Coke would cost in the winter versus the summer? Yes of course. While that may not be fair in theory, it is happening already, mostly because of analytics and testing of theories based on the raw data you and I provide in credit card receipts and online surfing as well as rewards cards.

Do we notice or care? Perhaps. But if we never knew the price of anything at a store would we still frequent it? Probably not, and your company website is really not any different.

Traveler error about incorrect server version

As a follow up to my post about the traveler fix we received.

Do not fat finger your typing, as I did.

I included an extra = sign in the xml file and that presented the following challenges:

1) new installations would fail with an error that says:
"The Server you have contacted must be upgraded to support this version of Lotus notes Traveler"
2) Devices would repeatedly get asked to download the updated or newer client

While these were my instructions:
\traveler\cfg\client\VersionInfo.txt

#Lotus Notes Traveler - Android
Lotus\ Traveler.Android.version=8.5.3.2 201207031233

If Linux OS - be sure the file pemissions/ownership is not changed.

I somehow added an extra = sign before the version number.

The IBM team sent me this URL to test the server which I provide in case anyone else sees these errors.

http://www.yourdomain.com/servlet/traveler?action=checkForUpdate&deviceType=Android&Version=0

You should get in return a message that looks like this(your verssion number may be different):

AppName=Lotus Traveler
DownloadLink=http://www.yourdomain.com/traveler/LotusTraveler/android/LotusTraveler.apk
Version=8.5.3.2 201207031233
LMIAppConfigFile=traveler.properties

In the incorrect xml file, the version line showed version== and thus the two sides could not communicate properly.

Live and learn.

Traveler Interim Fix Details

Most likely you will only get this if you need it or as part of the next Traveler update.

The fix is in and it works but it also included these extra bits, note it is specific to the level of the installed product at the time:


PREREQUISITES     Lotus Notes Traveler server version 8.5.3.2 Interim Fix 1 already installed.

FIX LIST:

        LO69673 - ATTACHMENTS WITH SPACES CAN CAUSE SOME APPLICATIONS TO BE UNABLE TO VIEW THEM.
        LO69736 - ANDROID WIDGET NOT AUTO UPDATED AFTER SYNC INTERVAL TRANSITION
        LO70314 - LOOKUP APP DOES NOT HANDLE DIALING PHONE NUMBERS WITH PAUSE OR EXTENSION
        LO70315 - IMPLICIT USES_FEATURE STATEMENTS CAUSE TRAVELER TO REQUIRE FEATURES
        LO70330 - MAILTO: STATEMENT IN PLAIN TEXT EMAILS ARE NOT CORRECTLY HYPERLINKED

And so my thanks to level 3 support and Jerry D. at IBM Support for getting this done before July 4th because I know someone probably said you can't go home until it's done.

Off to my next adventures.