brent@greylady.uoregon.edu (Brent Baker) (04/11/91)
*** DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS ACCOUNT -- RESPOND TO: howie@jas1.uoregon.edu *** Our maintenance contract is up for renewal, but we're a bit short on funds this year and could use some reasonable advice on what parts of the contract we should renew. Our quote for the Basic Support Contract is the following: Personal IRIS 20Mhz, 8BP 900 19"60Hz Tilt Swivel Color Monitor w/sys 0 Personal IRIS Graphics Upgrade 480 150MB 1/4" SCSI Tape Drive 180 380MB SCSI System Disk 300 Tape Update Media Option-D 720 Fortran 77 Compiler 180 Network File System 180 Software Development Package 780 --- Sub-Total $3720 Educational Discount -$1116 Total $2604 We can get an additional 10% discount if we make an annual payment. I was told that whatever we do, we should make sure to buy the next software upgrade because later attempts to upgrade will be much more expensive. Supposedly, third party software vendors (as well as Silicon Graphics) will use X windows in their new software with the result that those who don't upgrade will be holding the reins of a dead horse. The guy who runs our electronics shop says that we probably don't need to buy maintenance on the system disk because average repair costs are about $300. Are there any other reasonable suggestions that would save us a few dollars? Thanks, in advance. Howie howie@jas1.uoregon.edu