gordon@prls.UUCP (Gordon Vickers) (01/11/91)
The following complaint is for your information. It is also my
own personal opinion of a specific matter and does not (most likely
does not) neccessarily reflect the opinions of my employer or anyone
else.
Geeeeesh!
I've had it with D.E.C !! What a rip off they seem to be !!
As part of a VAX consolidation process we have a number of VAXes
that will no longer be used. One of these is an 8350 with VMS.
It was suggested that I take the 8350, put Ultrix on it and then
move all needed functionalities from two Ultrix Vaxes ( a 780 and 750)
to it, so we could retire the two 700 class machines.
DEC sure shot that down ! Even though the 750 and 780 have
Ultrix licenses, we were told that neither license could be transferred.
The license stayes with the CPU even if the two machines are scrapped.
Further more, the VMS license on the 8350 may have value but none of
that value could be applied toward the purchase of an Ultrix license
for that same CPU . The VMS license must remain with the 8350 even
if we wipe VMS out and over write it with Ultrix.
The real kick to the groin was the quote for the Ultrix license
and the realization that the media is sold separately !! The
cost, by the, way exceeded what I believe is the current resale value
of the 8350 hardware. Of course DEC's quote did make their suggestion
of leasing a 5400 look attractive :-)
So, I guess we will just move the 750 functionalities to the 780,
retire the 8350, get third party maintenance (just to retaliate) and
next time shop for non-DEC equipment.
Seems everytime I want to do something, DEC is right there wanting
tens of thousands of dollars. At least I'm not dealing with AT&T .
How are other computer manufacters on licensing ? Is DEC's way
typical ?
Gordon Vickers 408/991-5370 {mips,pyramid|philabs}!prls!gordon
Signetics in Sunnyvale,Ca (USA)
Please no flames on spelling or grammer, I'm in a hurry today.pavlov@canisius.UUCP (Greg Pavlov) (01/13/91)
> In article <50086@prls.UUCP> gordon@prls.UUCP (Gordon Vickers) writes: > > DEC sure shot that down ! Even though the 750 and 780 have > Ultrix licenses, we were told that neither license could be transferred. > The license stayes with the CPU even if the two machines are scrapped. > Further more, the VMS license on the 8350 may have value but none of > that value could be applied toward the purchase of an Ultrix license > for that same CPU . The VMS license must remain with the 8350 even > if we wipe VMS out and over write it with Ultrix. > This type of c*&^!@*!p, but from a different angle (DEC's marketing folks are chock full of legal-but-morally-corrupt "angles"), forced us into buying a small VAX cpu box from DEC recently instead of a used one from someone else. DEC "won" this particular battle and gained about $10K in the process. But they'll lose the war in that eventually we'll get to another round of major purchases and unless DEC's games have gone away, we'll be buying from some- one else. pavlov@stewart.fstrf.org