Mfg's ripoff prices for disks (was Re: Cheaper winnies on an NCR tower)

[Norman S. Soley]

In article <426 at thirdi.UUCP>, peter at thirdi.UUCP (Peter Rowell) writes:
> In some article ockenden at prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk (Paul T Ockenden) writes for someone else
> :We have an NCR Tower 32/600 here. NCR being the *wonderful*
> :people they are want about (UK#)4500 for a 140Mb drive. This sticks in
> :my throat.
> :
> :Second. 4500 UK Pnds for a 140Mb drive is er... a little steep...
> 
>To which vause at cs-col.Columbia.NCR.COM (Sam Vause) replies:
>>The design of the operating System disk interface code precludes the addition
>>of any non-approved disk into the TOWER.  The reason for this is *NOT* to 
>>inconvenience you as a customer, but to make sure that only *CERTIFIED* drives
>>are installed--the reliability of the machine and its data is the most impor-
>>tant issue here.  Drives this size *MUST* have an extremely high reliability
>>rating.
> 
> Sam: Did it occur to you that if he wants to put in his own damn drive
> that maybe he has the right to do that and would not expect NCR to
> guarantee it til the Second Coming of Christ?  If, in fact, he *did*
> expect NCR to guarantee it, just say that it, and any problems that
> exist *only* when it is plugged in, are *his* problems, and not yours.
> 
> This reply (and, I am certain, the corporate policy that spawned it)
> smacks of the worst kind of patronization in order to justify
> near-criminal profit margins on mass storage.  Yes, I am fully aware
> that NCR has plenty of company in this particular boat, including DEC,
> Sun, and every other system manufacturer I have ever done business with.

Just swiping at the vendors for 'criminal' pricing is a little unfair.
NCR's policy comes not from greed (well alright I'll admit there's
probably some greed involved) but from a clear understanding of their
market. By far and away the greatest portion of NCR's customers buy
they're boxes as part of a turnkey system to run some sort of canned
application either an off the shelf product like Qoffice or Smartware
or something from a vertical marketer, I'd be willing to bet that less
than half the Towers out there even have C compilers on them. These
customers want, and expect guarentees well past the apocolypse and NCR
is geared up to provide them with them for the right price of course.
Us hacker types who a) know we can get a better price and b) are prepred
to support what we do ourselves are very small fish in the computer
marketplace indeed. 

> I have been quoted a price, by one of my current system vendors, of $4400
> for an out-of-the-box CDC Wren II with the normal 90 day warranty.  Literally
> 2 miles away, I found the same drive from a disrtributor for $895 and
> the warranty was 30 days money back, 6 months swap out!  Unless we believe
> that the distributor was operating as a non-profit institution, we must
> assume that the system vendor is being criminally greedy.

Does the distributor have a service organization? will they keep an
inventory of drives for swapping out and for years later, did their 
development people have to right drivers for that disk, what happens 
if you have a machine problem you can't track down? I'll bet your vendors
technicians will just point their fingers at your 3rd party hardware,
right or wrong. There are a lot of hidden things you are paying for
when you buy from a system vendor instead of on the cheap from a
distributor. Although in this case I'd agree that the 5X margin is a
high.
 
Oh by the way lest anyone accuse me of rationalizing away wasteful
government spending, ontenv is an NCR tower with someone elses name
and 3rd party disks in it bought on the cheap. I've had to put in a 
quite a bit of time providing support that otherwise would have been 
provided gratis by NCR but I was willing to take that chance to save 
quite a bit of money by doing so, it paid off. But it's a luxury few
organizations can afford.

By the way if the original poster is willing to take the chance those
140 Meg drives are available from other sources (they're maxtors). But
remeber you are taking a calculated risk, be sure you know what your
doing.
-- 
Norman Soley - Data Communications Analyst - Ontario Ministry of the Environment
UUCP:	utgpu!ontmoh!------------\              VOICE:	+1 416 323 2623
	{attcan,utzoo}!lsuc!ncrcan!ontenv!norm	
             "witty saying not available due to writers strike"