A Company Competes With... Itself?

So I want to tell you all a little story. A couple years ago, a company called Konica and a company called Minolta merged and formed a company called... you guessed it: Konica Minolta. Now this little company still produces two lines of copiers, its Konica line is sold through dealerships across Canada and its Minolta line is sold through branches across Canada. We dealt with a Minolta salesman for five years right up until about a year ago. He left Minolta and went to work for a Konica branch. A year later, I'm saddled with the photocopier purchases and he's on my phone, wanting to sell me a Konica copier. Soon Minolta gets in touch with me (out of the blue) and, BAM, they want to sell me a copier too. A bidding war ensues. At one point they were pushing a $55,000 deal on me. But the question your should be asking yourself is: Why are two people who (albeit indirectly) work for the same company corporately, and contribute to that bottom line competing with each other? It's just so, so stupid.

I made the safer choice, stuck with the larger corporate entity (the branch, Minolta), and slightly not as great product, but for a better price. And there you have it. My first experience with the world of sales. What a bunch of .