[geeks] "$9,000 is the new free"

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 04:44:09PM +0200, Michael C. Vergallen wrote:

>True, Also we are speculating on what Oracle will do with the 
>products they obtained from their purchase of Sun. Ia8? speculating 
>that in the first stage they will ask big money for the products they 
>purchased but that in the longer term they will realise that they 
>should adopt a more realistic approch toward the hobyinst and 
>reintroduce the multi tear priceing structure so that hobyist can use 
>their products again so that they will have further support from the 
>community at large.

That's assuming they want further support. There are good reasons to have
it and good reasons to not. 

Not having it makes it attractive because you only get paying customers,
salaries of people who know it are kept high, and there is a good business
offering training. 

Having it floods the market with poorly trained, cheap people, many of whom
are not worth the law salaries they make. 

Take SunHelp for example. While I really appreciate Mr Bill's (and everyone
else who contributes) efforts, I'm a user, not someone selling service
contracts. If I was selling service contracts, I'd be less inclined to
appreciate it.

As another example, someone recently gave me some hardware they could not
get to work. It did not work because it ran different software than it
was thought to. 

It also needed a firmware upgrade, which was only available with a service 
contract. I was able to obtain a copy of it from someone who had it.

For me, this was great, I was able to make use of something that no longer
had any commercial value, at no cost to me (which I could afford).

To the vendor it was not as good, because if I did not get the gifts,
I would have had to buy a new model, and if necessary a support contract.

It's good for them because, now that I am familar with their hardware,
I will recommend it in the future and if I were buying new ones consider
their products first. 

I am now in competition as it were, with people who paid for training, 
pay license fees, etc. 

As I said, good for me, possibly bad for them. 

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation. 
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.