Hi! dick hoogendijk wrote: > some people complain about SUN. I'm not one of them. I like the OS very > much and the contaxts I had with sun employees were very good and > friendly. There is only ONE big issue I have with SUN: their ridiculous > high prices for using their software in the fullest way. > > Basic Service Plan for Solaris 10 : $ 324,- a year! > Even Microsoft does not make me pay such a high amount EACH YEAR for > using their software -INCLUDING ALL PATCHES- > Are you sure the total cost for the equivalent support isn't that high or higher?
For the desktop OS MS charges as much as $150 I think for the Vista 'ultimate' just to get the OS. You can download Solaris 10 for $0. Patches (windows update) for Windows cost $0, but are you really sure they're giving you *ALL* the patches they have? I'll concedethey give you all the patches they let you know exist - I'd theorize that these are the ones they 'recommend' you install though. For Solaris, all the recommended patches are $0 also, though you're right to get patches that aren't 'recommended', you need to have a support contract. I beleive the thinking there (I'm not sure I agree though) is that you really shouldn't be using a non-recommended patch unless you've opened a support ticket and the support person recommended that the patch will help you. If you care (and I can't tell if you do) about being able to call or email in to get help with problems you come across that no patch has fixed for you, then the MS cost is much more the last I looked - especially if you pay per incident. > And this is what bothers me most: as a user of the OS I would like to > be able to get/download released patches for the OS. As I siad above, the last time I looked, you can download the 'recommended' patch clister from Sun without a service contract. That may not be *every* patch that exists, but it's darn close, and with time most patches eventually make it into the cluster. > I do not want a > service contract or telephone support or whatever. I just would like to > download -ALL- patches. This seems a normal way for using an OS. > Surely I'd like to pay for this service. I do pay for MS stuff too. But > for patches alone an anual fee of $324,- is way too much! Why couldn't > SUN create a patch-only-support contract for less money. I'm sure lots > of people using solaris 10 would love it. Or am I wrong here? > > I don't know exectly why they don't make a patch only support price - I'd guess that its' because the recommended cluster is already $0. They probably don't think many people would pay for it. Also patches that aren't in the recommeded cluster aren't there usually for a reason. Possible reasons that I've heard are, the problem is rare, and/or the fix, while it fixes the immediate problem, carries risks of breaking something else less important, but still not worth breaking if you don't have the original problem. These are patches that Sun doesn't recommend installing unless you actually have the problem. That said, I can see how frustrating it would be to actually stumble onto one of those problems, and not be able to get the patch (until it has been field tested more and actually makes it's way into the recommended cluster) at all. Just my theories.... -Kyle
