On 08/27/2011 10:31 PM, Matthew Huff wrote:
As far as speaking to a TME, I work in small trading firm. We don't
have the luxury of long, involved RFP with detailed descriptions or
time to work with a TME to discuss every detail of every
configuration we use. We expect if a vendor advertise features, that
they should work, except when they are documented (like caveats).
I'm not saying this behaviour is acceptable, or that you are in any way
at fault, but it's important to emphasise that every single networking
vendor we've had dealings with has done something like this at some
point, and I'm sure there were innumerable other undocumented caveats
that we didn't run into that other customers of those vendors did.
This is incredibly irritating - it imposes economic costs on every user,
potential and real, as they have to discover the limits - but it is
surely unarguably the case that vendors do not usually document their
device limitations in a useful and accessible form.
(Many then make strenuous efforts to avoid uttering the phrase
"limitation" on the instructions of their lawyers, so it's to the credit
of Cisco that they've owned up, although I realise this is of no
practical use to you)
There seem to me to be a number of reasons why this happens; not least,
the absence of the equivalent of consumer protection when selling to
business. I guess that the relative immaturity[1] of the market as well
as the complexity and diversity of the products contributes.
Bottom line: you *should* be able to trust vendor marketing, but you
*can't*, and I strongly advise you don't, for Cisco or any other vendor
- they simply don't convey accurate information reliably enough :o(
Cheers,
Phil
[1] In comparison for the market for something like, say, cars, or
televisions.
_______________________________________________
cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected]
https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
