Timothy Sipples says: >Some people beat up IBM for *not* withdrawing older models soon enough,
Tom Marchant remarks: >Really? I can't say that I've ever heard that before. Bob Richards responds: >Think bleeding-edge large shops, which is where I have worked a fair >amount of my career. I certainly have heard it before. Yes, I was thinking of that same situation as Bob. Another situation I've run into is government, of any size. I remember one county or city that has what's probably a fairly common procurement policy: If the product is new from the factory, a formal procurement process is required which stretches to a year or more. If the product is available new from the factory, it has to be bought new from the factory. If the product is used and no longer available new from the factory, the procurement process is relatively simple and quick. More generally, taxes and depreciation can vary dramatically depending on who and where you are, and new versus used. Also, if you're in the European Union, and maybe one or two other European countries, you already cannot order a factory new mainframe prior to a z9 BC or EC model. That's due to some EU materials regulations way beyond IBM's control. I believe it's also not possible to import even a used pre-z9 into the EU. I have no inside information here, but one would think the EU regulations would have some bearing on the rest of the world. The EU is a very big market. - - - - - Timothy Sipples IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect Specializing in Software Architectures Related to System z Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan and IBM Asia-Pacific E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
