Steve: You're killing me here. A two-year tape purchase in advance, but we
won't get the sale?
It used to be said that "no one got fired for buying IBM" but that's not
true anymore...lots of new companies with smarter, better technologies took
some market share from them.
So here we are with a better technology, a better price point, a product you
like, but no sale: too risky, and you're going to go with the "established"
company.
That's one of those close-ended arguments that's tough to debate. You
already know that Ecrix was started by long-time pro's in this market, and
that the team here has gone from start-up to established business before.
And we intend to do it again. You already know that there's a possibility of
some of these more established companies abandoning tape altogether...sure
the company will still be around, but who knows what tape-related service
you'll get in two years.
Dang, it's -tough- to build and sell a better moustrap. Can we smack your
boss around a bit? Sorry, just joshing with you. DDS is obviously worthy
competition and a fine product. We'll talk to you in two years.
Marketing pitch: For those of you not "corporate clones" we're doing the
August promotion right now, at www.vxa.com/eval:
Internal Kit $489, External Kit $649, Internal Retrospect Bundle $589,
External Retrospect Bundle $749
----------------------------
Geoff Rainville
Web Promotions
Ecrix Corporation
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
303-245-9669
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
Of Steve Rothman
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 9:18 AM
To: retro-talk
Subject: Re: VXA drive (was DDS-3 vs DDS-4?)
>
>> (The only single-tape solution
>> in my price range is VXA, which sounds very nice, but there is NO WAY
>> I will go with a new, single-vendor solution...)
>
>You really have to look at risk vs. cost in this case. You can get into a
>VXA drive with a few tapes for $600-$700 and have an immediate 33-66Gb
>single-tape backup capacity. You'll pay about twice that much for a DDS
>equivalent, and more for anything else.
That would be great in many situations. In my particular case, I
need to specify everything I need for a two year time span (which in
my case means two drives plus all tapes and cleaning tapes, etc.) on
a single purchase order.
It looks to me, for my particular requirements, including the two
drives, required tapes, etc. that VXA is about halfway between DDS-2
and DDS-4 in price. If I was judging this purely on price & specs,
I'd go for the VXA, because of the promised reliability and only
needing a single tape/backup.
But in my particular situation, I cannot tolerate the risk that my
VXA drives may go bad a year from now and that no one besides Ecrix
could fix/replace them. How can I predict the responsiveness of the
Ecrix repair department over the years to come? Also, when my two
year supply of tapes is up, in mid-2002, will VXA tapes be readily
accessible and reasonably priced? Perhaps, perhaps not...
I know, for a fact, that there will be multiple sources to
repair/replace DDS-3 drives over the next 2 - 3 year, and that DDS-3
media will be available from multiple vendors over the next 2 - 3
years.
If I was looking basically 6 months ahead, or more of a gambler, I
would probably buy Ecrix anyway. It sounds like a great drive and I
wish them luck!
But I'm not a gambler, I'm a corporate clone that will have an angry
boss if my backup strategy fails in a year or so because I picked a
brand-new, single-source mechanism/media vendor that my boss never
heard of...
-Steve
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