The traditional process of "sales" doesn't provide nearly as much value as it once did. We now have google and more efficient social networking available as a means of locating solutions to various business problems one may have.

I remember the halcyon days of the dot com era when hot redheaded sales reps from Exodus would take you on datacenter tours and treat you to dinner to secure a lucrative two-rack deal.

I remember pushy but friendly Oracle salespeople selling you on a $250k six-processor O7 license predicated on "well ebay's using it".

Nowadays I refuse to take vendor phone calls. If I need a solution, I google it or ask around my circle of tech friends.

The claim that sales is "valuable" is lost on me at this point.