Musings on hardware prices - opps

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya mike

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote:

> One of the disadvantages of small distributors like Acma/Malabs, is they 

yeah... they are 3rd or 4th level distrib... go to the bigger outfits
that actually carry stock ...
	- i buy from one distributor, that tends to have what i need
	in stock that i can pick up within the hr

> >just penguin left from that era ...
> >
> They're still around? 

for those that like bigger ( small shops ), yeah, they're arround,
but they too are suffering from the use cheaper parts to increase
margins problems ... 
	- ie .. there's no margins in hw

> Who would want to?

i do ... i prefer machines i spec'd myself ... vs getting the
phone call at 3am to come fix it ... or stay up till its fixed ..

there's too many of that on 3rd party junk ...

> There are better solutions now.

its always a toss up of:

price vs performance vs reliability   ( pick 2 of the 3 )

and add brandname if you/the customers like to pay extra for that
name brand hardware

-----

odd part ... 
	- i havent seen any dead/broken ibm boxes ... 
	- i havent seen too many dead/broken hp boxes
	- i have seen too too too many dead/broken dells and compaqs

> For it's time, SI was 
> good.  And given
> all of your "easy enough to make" comments, I wonder how much free time 
> you might have?

i have tons of free time ... bescause i do it my way ...

hw is micky mouse ... and only 10% of the problem ...

> The whole building/writing everything in-house idea is nice in theory.. 
> Actually, no it's not. Who
> has the time for that kind of crap? 100 hours of development time versus 
> $10k and instant
> gratification, give me the instant gratification.

depends on ones skill level and where you want to spend your time
and charge for it ...  hw is the cheapest part of any deal

we charge for time spent in labor charges to config/setup...
and hardware is free under the right terms/conditions
 
> Fry's is for hobbyiests and bad hacks.

<oops>
i meant, buy stuff there only for your own use .. not for customers ...
</oops>

 Brent Chapman likes to say that 
> if he's buying it
> from BlackBox, there is something wrong in the design.

there usually is something wrong with most peoples specs and
requirements and pricing ... at least the ones i see

> Rebate pricing is a joke.

yup

> Sure you can get good pricing on a hard drive 
> here or there.. so what? I walk
> into fry's and ask for 50 servers,

hopefully, nobody buys more than 1 of anything at fries ...

me thinks you're entertaining yourself by mixing consumer stuff vs
industrial strength goods 
 
> Yeah. If you have a 1K server order, you have no need to nickel and 
> dime, all you have to do is set your price
> and walk away if the vendor flinches.

that's my point ...  esp when they dont know what parts to buy
from where  and how much each retailer/distributer sells each item

c ya
alvin