At 8 o'clock in the morning on Saturday, Gu Yawen invited reporters to go to the restaurant for breakfast.

I met Ouyang and several other people at the door of the restaurant. After being introduced, the two managers of Paq Company who were being interviewed had just arrived.

Xu Yaoming, PC channel director, looks about 35 years old, of medium height, and has a northern accent.

The server technical director was a woman with a surname of Chen, and she was also in her 30s. When Gao Yang heard the accent, he knew that she was probably from Baodao.

In this era, European and American IT companies began to implement localized management in China. Almost all Chinese companies, from the big boss to the top management, were Chinese, and foreigners were rarely seen.

However, Gao Yang also knows that almost all of these people are from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even Chinese from Southeast Asia. Mainland people have a career ceiling in these foreign companies and cannot reach the top level.

Paq has become a channel director, which is already quite impressive.

After having breakfast together and with more than 20 minutes of rest time, Gao Yang exchanged business cards with the two managers.

Server technical director, full name is Chen Shujie.

At 9 a.m., the reporters were led into the conference room, and Chen Shujie gave a ppt lecture.

What Chen Shujie was preaching was proliant server, the industry standard server that paq is promoting.

The so-called industrial standard server is different from the Unix system server. Its chip is Intel's Pentium Xeon and the operating system is Windows.

This is the so-called wintel architecture, also known as the wintel alliance.

In the next two years, the open source Linux operating system will become more popular.

Then, in terms of style, these servers are divided into tower type, cabinet type and blade type that will soon appear.

In addition, according to grade, there are also divisions such as 2-way, 4-way, 8-way, and 16-way.

As a liberal arts student, Gao Yang only knew basic common sense about servers. As for how powerful these products were technically and what specific problems they could help users solve, Gao Yang had no idea.

Chen Shujie gave a ppt lecture about proliant servers, and her speech routines were naturally familiar to Gao Yang as an IT reporter in his previous life.

Chen Shujie compared the server brand currently promoted by paq with its competitors, such as IBM, HP and Dell, in terms of technical features and solutions, and demonstrated and instilled in the media the superiority and affordability of her own products.

On the 8-way server that paq is proud of, make a relevant comparison with the unix minicomputer.

Gao Yang also knew that in this era, the information construction of banks had just begun, and minicomputers were the mainstream, but they were extremely expensive. A set of minicomputers might cost tens of millions, and even a year's service fee would cost several millions.

In comparison, industrial standard servers like Proliant are many times cheaper and are even expected to replace low-end minicomputers in some non-critical applications.

Chen Shujie spoke on the ppt for half an hour, and then there was exclusive interview time for reporters to ask questions.

The public relations company arranged for a stenographer, but Gao Yang, like reporters from other media, took out a palm-sized tape interview machine, pressed the recording switch, and placed it in front of Chen Shujie.

In this era, you can’t find MP3 players in computer stores, let alone voice recorders.

Gao Yang only asked two questions.

First, what is the sales volume of Proliant series servers this year, what industries are the main customer groups in, and what are the goals for next year.

The second is what the channel agent model is, what value-added service models agents or si (system integrators), isv (independent software developers) have.

The interview lasted for more than 30 minutes. The time pointed to 10:05 in the morning. No one from the reporters asked questions. Manager Ouyang announced that the interview was over and there would be a 15-minute break.

During the break, Gu Yawen took out a form, asked the media reporters to sign in, and then gave each person an envelope.

Gao Yang knew that the envelope contained travel expenses. He felt that today's envelope was thicker when he pinched it, so he threw it into his shoulder bag.

No one is stupid enough to open the envelope on the spot to see how much money is inside.

At 10:20, I returned to the conference room and Xu Yaoming started giving a ppt lecture again.

Xu Yaoming was naturally talking about PCs, including desktop computers and laptops, and his routine was similar to that of Chen Shujie just now.

It also quotes data from professional research companies, benchmarking competitors such as Dell, IBM, HP, Acer and Lenovo to see how strong Paq is in the PC market.

Paq's global sales number one position will soon be replaced by Dell, which started with direct sales. Moreover, Paq will be fully acquired by HP.

paq’s various initiatives in channel development and service.

Actually, there is nothing new.

These IT vendors must find excuses from time to time to invite media reporters to chat and write one or two articles to maintain media exposure.

If we look at it by the standards of mass media, almost all of the articles in IT media are soft promotional articles for IT companies.

It’s just that in this era, the main channel for many people to understand IT products is IT newspapers and magazines, and some IT newspapers and magazines are quite popular.

Xu Yaoming boasted for more than 20 minutes. After finishing the ppt, he entered the interview session.

This time, Gao Yang took the lead in asking:

"Mr. Xu, I am a cpi reporter. I understand paq's channel management model as a pure distribution system. From the national general agent, the first-level agent at the regional level, to the provincial distributor, paq's responsibility for agents

Coverage.

My hometown is in Jinyang, Sichuan, an underdeveloped third-tier city. Jinyang also formed a computer city in the past few years, and there was also an Internet cafe last year.

I was once in Jinyang Computer City, the signboard of Paq Computer.

In paq’s channel management system, does this category of agents have coverage, and is there relevant qualification certification and corresponding services for them?”

Xu Yaoming lowered his head and glanced at the reporter's business card on the table, and smiled slightly:

"It seems that Reporter Gao knows the channels very well, so this is a good question.

In the PC area, Compaq's current channels are basically pure distribution models. The same is true for friendly companies such as IBM and HP.

You just mentioned that dealers in third-tier cities should be developed by our first-generation or provincial-level distribution. Their qualification certification and after-sales support are also responsible for upstream agents.

Of course, we also have an official website, a 400 telephone number, and paq, and we will provide timely feedback to the agent for processing."

Gao Yang asked again:

"Mr. Xu, Dell, a direct sales company, has been very popular this year. Recently, the channel circle is also paying attention to the general trend of channel flattening.

A few years ago, selling a PC might earn you several thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan in profit. Now the PC market is getting bigger and bigger, the competition is fierce, and the sales gross profit is getting lower and lower.

What I want to ask is, is there any pressure on the multi-level channel system like paq? Will you consider compressing the channel levels and carrying out flat reforms in the future?"

Xu Yaoming glanced at Gao Yang and nodded:

"It is undeniable that Dell is really fast, and direct selling is also its characteristic. However, there is only one direct selling company in the world, and it is not mainstream. The direct selling model has its advantages and disadvantages, such as sacrificing quality for the pursuit of price and after-sales service.

services, etc.

However, judging from the current multi-level channel system, flattening is indeed the general trend, and we are also studying this aspect."

Gao Yang asked two questions first and then rested. It was enough to attract Xu Yaoming's attention.

Then, other reporters also started asking questions.

In this situation, there is also a kind of competition among the media. They must show their strength and level in front of customers.


Chapter completed!