[rescue] back to needing an U1 cpu fan :-( need source

[Kurt Mosiejczuk]

On Mon, 24 Jun 2002, Leslie Connally wrote:

> But at that point, U1s, the U5s 10s are virtually worthless, so they just
> upgrade (the paying support customers) to whatever is available and
> current. Youre U1 dies?.. here's a U10.. its been depreciated to $0 anyway.
> hell, in a couple of years, the Blade 100s will be $0..

Except that it's not a direct swap.  Instead of a part showing up and
me being back up within hours I now have to deal with the fact that my
bootblocks don't work.  Oh, and those sbus cards you had in that Ultra 1?
They don't work.  Oh, right... you had SCSI disks? (of course you did,
no IDE disks on U1).  Right, those won't work without a SCSI card.

THAT is why they would curb this kind of free replacement ahead of time.
The people who buy these service contracts don't care if they have
the latest/greatest/shiniest.  They want back up.  Many measure their
downtime in $/sec sometimes thousands of $/sec.  A U10 to replace a U1
is not much consolation (especially considering many consider a U1
superior to U10).

> Or, they do what I see happen in the HP/IBM/Compaq Independant Part Dealer
> world.. they start buying product back from out of channel. My dealer
> friends sell parts all the time back to these guys.  I mean, IBM is not
> going to manufacture a production run of 10,000.. widgets to satisfy one
> friggin support customer. They'll find another way.

This is a possible way to go... but it's actually cheaper to not give
away all your existing stock first.

--Kurt