[captainmuon]

As someone who was accidentially thrust into an IT role and had to do some purchasing... I absolutely hated sales cales and B2B selling. The simple act of buying a server means finding an "authorized reseller", going through some sales calls, proving that you are a worthy customer, then they want to know all about your other setup to make sure it is "supported" (which turns out to have no consequence whatsoever). The quoted price is completely different from what is listed, and there are arbitrary surcharges. Isn't there an easier way? Yes, but the pointy haired boss decided we have to go the proper route. Funnily the reseller had a very trustworthy name like "usedserverdiscount24.de" or something.

The worst one was when I was trying to get some antivirus licenses. We were willing to spend a lot on Sophos, because it had good reviews, we were happy with the trial, and so on. But the reseller tried to upsell us, insisted we buy matching firewalls, and so on. So in the end we stuck with Windows Defender (we got a bunch of licenses for Advanced Threat Protection from MS for free).

[aksss]

I hesitate to make blanket statements, but at this point, by and large and for most companies, Windows Defender (particularly with supplemental services from Microsoft like OneDrive backup, and Intune (some way to enforce configuration), etc) are more than fine for most companies. Spending money on third party AV solutions, particularly those that MSPs are making margin on with complementary hardware solutions (cough, sophos), are a rip-off.

[snuxoll]

JFC, as somebody that’s in a dozen different partner programs just so I can offer products if I need to doing side hustles I could probably make a decent living just being a VAR that sells you what you ask for and leaves you the hell alone. I get that sales reps want to upsell, but I just want to buy X and I know what I want!