waldram@WOLF.UWYO.EDU (03/30/91)
!!!!!Flame ON!!!!
In July of 1990, we ordered our 9000 400t's (qty 2). Concurrently we
ordered the upgrade to the 425. We patiently waited for our 400t's.
They arrived. We waited patiently for the 425 upgrades, understanding
that HP was having problems with Motorola in getting the proper parts...
NOVEMBER,,,DECEMBER,,,JANUARY,,,FEBRUARY Finally a glimmer of hope!
We hear some 425t's are shipping. HP/A folks assure us that soon we
too will be the proud receipients of the upgrades....MARCH We will
be shipped the upgrade in APRIL (by the 15th). But wait,,,I actually
talked to someone who ordered a 400t and upgrade very recently, and they
received the upgrade weeks ago!!!!! While I realize that:
1) UNIVERSITIES start with a U (near the end of the alphabet is the key point)
and all upgrades are sent out in alphabetical order
2) UNIVERSITIES are the "poorboys" of the computing world
3) I have been a patient, pleasant, understanding, nice...(maybe in
retrospect a buffoon) person in my dealings with HP/A personnel involved.
It looks as if HP/A has a major problem getting timely, fairly distributed
upgrades to its customers. I leave it to the readers, should I:
A) Become a raving maniac (as in very, very mad) in my dealings
with HP/A personnel, killing the messenger (as it were). I
have never found any of my contacts to be other than nice people, so
I don't like this possiblilty.
B) Find the person(s)/group(s) responsible (how do I do THAT!?) and
FLAME ON THEM.
C) Resign myself to the observation that old customers are less important
than new ones.
!!!!!Flame OFF!!!!
Jim Waldram
Senior System Analyst
University of Wyoming
waldram@grizzly.uwyo.edu
jwaldram@outlaw.uwyo.edu
jwaldram@UYYO.BITNETthompson@PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM (John Thompson) (03/30/91)
> It looks as if HP/A has a major problem getting timely, fairly distributed > upgrades to its customers. I leave it to the readers, should I: > A) Become a raving maniac (as in very, very mad) in my dealings > with HP/A personnel, killing the messenger (as it were). I > have never found any of my contacts to be other than nice people, so > I don't like this possiblilty. > B) Find the person(s)/group(s) responsible (how do I do THAT!?) and > FLAME ON THEM. > C) Resign myself to the observation that old customers are less important > than new ones. I suppose it depends (this was probably a rhetorical question, but....) 1) What's your discount rate? If you're getting the 50, 60, 70, ... percent discount that some universities get, I (as a truly paying customer) could understand HP/Apollo giving preference to the people paying real $$$. (I don't know if HP/Apollo gives discounts that are really steep -- I have only heard _secondhand_ tales of steep discounts from vendor X to university Y.) 2) Do you have delivery problems from other vendors as well? If HP/Apollo is giving you poor treatment, and ACME Computers is out there giving you the best service in the world, then you should tell HP/Apollo that fact. 3) Have you talked w/ your local reps about this? You can complain without raving. Since all the local people seem nice, ask them for the names/numbers of people that are higher up. In this case, I believe that a lot of the problem was w/ delivery from Motorola -- the 040 is still not as solid as HP/Apollo (or we peons here at Honeywell) would like to see. (The O/S is also rather shakey on them -- don't know how much is the O/S and how much is the hardware foundation.) -- jt -- John Thompson Honeywell, SSEC Plymouth, MN 55441 thompson@pan.ssec.honeywell.com Me? Represent Honeywell? You've GOT to be kidding!!!
DERSTAD@CIM-VAX.HONEYWELL.COM (03/30/91)
One other item jt left out. The original poster implied that new customers were getting preferential treatment over old customers. We got our first 425t upgrade about 10 days ago, and we're a fairly old customer (1983 or so). Incidentally, given what I've seen of the 425t/PSK8 combination, you might not want it yet... We've had a lot of intermittent problems. I'm planning to post a list once I have time. We're probably going to load PSK8 on a 400t to see if it sithe the upgrad or the OS (I'm hoping the OS on the grounds that's easier to patch). I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else with a 425t considers them somewhat unstable. Dave Erstad DERSTAD@cim-vax.honeywell.com Honeywell SSEC
krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (03/30/91)
The current HP educational discount is 38%. Sun's is 40% and DEC's special- friends-of -Ken-Olsen's-working-at-MIT sometimes goes as high as 50%. It's not a university problem. Some big customers (like say, Boeing, or Mentor Graphics), get big discounts, too. It's a basic law of marketing. Big customers get more attention than little ones. Try getting a Sun sales person to come on site to sell you another 2 Sparcstations (even though your department has bought about 40 so far, all in 2's and 3's). Fat chance! Try getting your HP salesman to come on site to sell you 20 HP 9000 series 700 machines! (if I could make the offer, Mike Hutnyan, our longtime loyal account rep would be here tomorrow). A sales man/woman can't give as much attention to 10 $20K accounts as they can to 2 $100K accounts. The other problem is that money already paid is not as important as money still to be received. As John has noted, HP has a limitted number of '040 CPU boards (still!). They must either refuse to book new orders for series 425t/425t machines (which causes them to lose revenue in the current quarter), or they must ship the new orders within 30 days and ship the upgrades when they can. Booking new orders is always more important in the eyes of Wall St. == Dave the cynical curmugeon