bep@quintro.uucp (Bryan Province) (06/07/91)
I recently talked with my HP sales guy to inquire about getting either PSK8 or PSK8X. He told me that they used to be for free but now HP is charging $98 each for them. We have a current software and hardware maintenance agreement with HP so we've become accustomed to getting updates and patches for free. I consider PSKs to be updates/bug fixes. The sales guy said that it was some kind of decision from corporate. Another HP guy I talked to said it was only a media charge and I shouldn't be complaining about it. Well why do they need $98 a pop for updates when I have already paid for software maintenance? It's a little more of a hassel for me to get a purchase requisition approved. Has anyone else run into this? BTW, the sales guy also said that PSKQ3_91 should be available sometime in July. It will have everything in PSK8 PSK8X and additional patches. Nice but it will also cost $98. The order number is LFC50BAD if you are interested. Also, I think someone mentioned on the net that either PSK8 or PSK8X had a patch to increase the number of process slots available on the 400 series machines at SR10.3. Currently the limit is 64. HP says that PSK8 just has support for the 68040 and support for SCSI disk devices. And PSK8X has those things plus some X11R4 software (server and/or libraries I think). I have a 400t, need to boost the number of process slots, and would like to continue using the X11R4 server if possible. Could someone either repost the info or mail to me if you don't want to waste bandwidth. Sorry but this is the first time in quite a while that I've been able to get on the net. -- --=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-- Bryan Province -Glenayre Corp., Quincy, IL- quintro!bep@lll-winken.llnl.gov "I tried putting instant coffee in the microwave, I almost went back in time." - Steven Wright
goldfish@CONCOUR.CS.CONCORDIA.CA (06/07/91)
| fixes. The sales guy said that it was some kind of decision from | corporate. Another HP guy I talked to said it was only a media charge | and I shouldn't be complaining about it. Well why do they need $98 a | pop for updates when I have already paid for software maintenance? | It's a little more of a hassel for me to get a purchase requisition | approved. Has anyone else run into this? The reason for the charge is to convince you that you should ditch your Apollo and buy a Sun, DEC, IBM, SGI, or anything but HP workstation, since that is how they like to treat their customers. :-( -- Paul Goldsmith <goldfish@concour.cs.concordia.ca> (514) 848-3031 (Shirley Maclaine told me there would be LIFETIMES like this) the future isn't what it used to be; and possibly, never was (ao)
wjw@ebh.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) (06/10/91)
In article <1991Jun6.214559.4887@quintro.uucp>, bep@quintro.uucp (Bryan Province) writes:
=> I recently talked with my HP sales guy to inquire about getting either
=> PSK8 or PSK8X. He told me that they used to be for free but now HP is
=> charging $98 each for them. We have a current software and hardware
=> maintenance agreement with HP so we've become accustomed to getting
=> updates and patches for free. I consider PSKs to be updates/bug
=> fixes.
So would I. But them it is obvious that they think otherwise.
My guess is that it also depends on the support/sales-operation it self.
Here in Holland, things seem to be pretty relaxed. After some argueing
I've have got the following deal. (note that it's a sort of personal service)
With someone in the suport department.
I receive the patch-tape on regular basis, and for that purpose I've
mailed two tapes to the person giving me the service.
Every time a new patchtape gets released, we exhange tapes. I get the
patches, he gets a clean one.
I on my side have promissed to supply the tape/patches to any Apollo-admin
in our University.
The cost of this:
- Stamps
- s Tape drives
- A (little) effort for writting a script to do the copy
- inserting and removeing the tapes.
The result:
- A VERY HAPPY customer.
This story as a contrast to all other nerd talk about headstrong
sales-persons.
Regards, (and with thanx to my support-person)
Willem Jan
--
Eindhoven University of Technology DomainName: wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl
Digital Systems Group, Room EH 10.10
P.O. 513 Tel: +31-40-473401
5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands