> Wow. That sure seems expensive. Even Suse is much cheaper, > although I really don't know the details and their quality of > service compared to yours.
Make sure you're comparing to the 390 versions here. As I mentioned in a private note to Eric, the SLES 8 prices quoted on SuSE's WWW site are for the *Intel* version, not the 390. There are no quotes posted for the 390 version, and the prices shown there do not include shipping, handling, or cinnamon rolls. There is also no current way to purchase SuSE's SLES distribution without purchasing their support. SuSE support for the 390 version is priced per engine; a large machine will cost quite a bit more than the rates charged for one engine, and you *will* need more than one engine to do serious work. In both cases, the support and media distribution service pricing quoted on our site are flat rate and do not vary if you have a 1 engine box or a 20 engine box. We place no limits on the number of engines or instances used with the media service -- that's your decision, and we assume that you're going to make the best use of your internal facilities to replicate fixes and new software to your internal infrastructure according to the schedule and frequency that makes sense for you. You also get to keep the media -- no returns required. The support contracts we provide are based on a low fixed subscription component which include up to 10 hours per incident, and a T&M rate that indexes against the time and the complexity of the issues reported. This allows us to keep the price low for customers with significant Linux talent that need a "safety net" contract, or provide for detailed development and design assistance with complex environments w/o having to do special bids for development or complicated integration problems (we allow conversion of support hours into custom development, at your discretion). Given that, we think it's a pretty cost-effective offering. And, SuSE doesn't do cinnamon rolls. 8-) -- db
