my thoughts on package management

[Scott Becker]

Tom 'spot' Callaway wrote:

>On Fri, 2003-07-25 at 12:20, Scott Becker wrote:
>  
>
>>Not formalizing and publishing the volume 
>>discounts is very short sighted because more than half of the 
>>prospective RHEL customers my size never talk to them after seeing the 
>>price and multiplying it times the number of servers (7 in my case). We 
>>just say to our selves, "forget it, it cost too much".
>>    
>>
>
>Do you pay list price for your hardware? Do you pay list price for ANY
>software application? I suspect the answer is no on both counts, but you
>HAVE to engage the Sales machine in order to get that volume discount.
>Almost no computer business entities publish their volume sales
>discounts (outside of the channel). Red Hat is not unique in this
>regard.
>  
>
We have seven servers accumulated/updated over 5 years. We paid list for 
all of it. I understand you have to work through your system but I 
recommend at least mentioning a volume discounts exists. We have 20 
windows workstations bought one or two at a time over five years with no 
discount except that the OS was less by being bundled with the hardware. 
There is no yearly fee to keep windows updated. Windows sucks of course 
and updates will end soon for the version I'm using. I've bought a few 
servers with no OS and I think it was only $30 less. I work for the kind 
of small business where we don't have any volume in our IT (me). The RH 
seminar in Seattle which I attended (first ever) is where I found out 
about about volume discounts.

I just carefully read the page on "Enterprise Linux ES" and found "For 
Volume Sales: Contact Sales" which implies volume discount but I still, 
after all this, don't know if 7 servers would give me a discount. I 
know, "Call Sales and talk to them." but a little more info on the site 
may intice an average Joe like me to actually call.

>Striking a middle ground between the needs of the "do-it-yourselfer" and
>the "enterprise" is far trickier than you've detailed. Any approach
>taken has to be sure not to weaken the position on either side. 
>
>  
>
Understood.

    Scott Becker