john@hopf.math.nwu.edu (John Franks) (06/03/90)
In early March we ordered two SparcStation1's. We were told to expect delivery about the end of March. Since the end of March we have heard one story after another about why we aren't getting delivery. I've been told the factory shut down for inventory, there was a chassis shortage, there was a freeze on SS1+ shipments because of a cabling problem, the whole order was held up because we ordered DosWindows, etc. At every time in the last two months I've been told shipment was imminent -- "shipping today", "shipping the first of next week", "we thought it had already shipped." Here are my questions: 1. Did these shortages, freezes, and inventories actually occur or is three + months a typical delivery time for SS1+'s? Is our experience typical of Sun sales service? 2. We are getting a standard academic discount. Is it possible that academic discount customers get lowest priority for shipping? In that case, perhaps orders are coming in fast enough from "full price" customers that we keep getting pushed to the bottom of the list. That could go on forever. 3. Is this behavior typical of other vendors, e.g. Dec and IBM? The inability to deliver in 3 months is certainly an important factor in deciding which system to choose. John Franks Dept of Math. Northwestern University john@math.nwu.edu
shaffer@net-sun1.nih.gov (Micheal Alan Shaffer) (06/11/90)
>1. Did these shortages, freezes, and inventories actually occur or is > three + months a typical delivery time for SS1+'s? Is our experience > typical of Sun sales service? Ours were promissed by May 11th. Today (Jun 11) they still can't tell us when they will ship. >2. We are getting a standard academic discount. Is it possible that > academic discount customers get lowest priority for shipping? In that > case, perhaps orders are coming in fast enough from "full price" customers > that we keep getting pushed to the bottom of the list. That could go on > forever. We are government and we are also having the same problems Neat tricks Sun plays these days huh...Get us to invest $60K in a new architecture, abandon it in one year, force us into their choice of architecture and then foul up their deliverys so that we can't even have that. If Sun doesn't straighten up people may start writing for other machines. If they do I will switch!
dmc@cam.sri.com (David Carter) (06/14/90)
>Is it possible that academic discount customers get lowest priority >for shipping? I have wondered about this, with regard not only to discount but also to size of installation. How about a statement from Sun on the matter? Do they have a policy of treating all orders equally, regardless of discount or how big the customer is? If so, what steps do they take to ensure that the policy is actually followed by the sales staff in the face of irate phone calls from machineless customers? David Carter SRI International Cambridge Research Centre Cambridge, U.K. dmc@ai.sri.com