Conference 7.286::digital

3354.0. "Feedback on buying machines vis a vis the "new DEC"" by QUARK::LIONEL (Free advice is worth every cent) Thu Aug 25 1994 15:51

[I received the following today from a customer - I'm unsure what to do with
it besides give it some visibility here.  Maybe that will help.  Suggestions
welcome. - Steve]

Hi,

This is a bit of feedback on the new DEC, pass it on to whoever should see
such things, but please strip my name off of it first.

We were in the market for a new VMS server, an AXP of some sort.  
Queries to our overworked DEC rep. were getting answered, but very slowly.
At this point the big shakeup caused us to be shifted over to Wyle labs.  
The folks at Wyle labs were very good at providing information, they came 
out (along with a DEC workstation representative) and went over the current 
options with me.  They left a pile of technical literature.  All very 
useful and pretty quick too.  At this point I was quite satisfied (although
they really wanted to sell me OSF/1, even though I told them that I was
after VMS).  In retrospect, the personal visit wasn't required - everything
that I needed was in the Systems and Options Catalog and the April 1994
supplement to same.  While I had leafed through some of this stuff via the
internet, actually having the book in hand made life a lot easier.

After going over the technical stuff carefully I put together a list of 
equipment and sent it to Wyle for a quote.  It came back quickly enough, 
but it was at DEC list.  Note, not DEC TEI list, full DEC list.  When I 
complained that this was ridiculous I was told that "we could order it at
the TEI price, but it would never ship."  Yeah, right, and I won't be 
buying that bridge you're selling either!

Our school requires competitive bids on equipment that costs this much, and 
since DEC equipment is now effectively no longer single source (in terms of
vendors), I went out and got quotes.  I spoke to 3 resellers which were 
picked more or less at random out of Digital News and Review.  The original
quote from Wyle was $51453 on the following equipment:

1   DY-251P1-A9   2100 server,  VMS
1   MS450-CA      128 Mb for same
1   PB2HA-SD      EISA SCSI
1   PCXAV-EA      16" color monitor
1   QA-MT1AH-H8   VMS DOC on CD
1   BC09D-03      SCSI cable
1   LPS17-DA      17 Ppm printer
1   LPS1X-AA      Toner cartridge
1   LPS1X-AB      Maintenance kit
3   RZ28-VA       2 Gbyte disks
plus Shipping and Assembly of same.

The resellers starting quotes were all under $46000, and after amending
their quotes a couple of times their final offers were:  $43945, $43383, and
$42570.  So, the best reseller quote was about 17% below DEC list.  I 
should note also that getting quotes (and requotes) from the resellers was
effortless and quick - fax or phone them and the quote arrives by fax the
same or next day.  A direct quote from DEC under TEI pricing started out 7%
below list, but said price was full of DEC "recover-all" and installation
charges which cut the effective discount to only 4%. 

Wyle reentered the picture at this point after shuffling salesmen.  They
requoted at $49635.  When informed that they were $7000 higher than the low
bid they referred me to a fourth reseller (one that I'd never heard of),
and that reseller came in with a quote of $43165. 

In the end we went with the low quote (as required by school policy).  The
equipment is supposed to be delivered in about two weeks and at that point
we'll see if this process worked out well or poorly.  (Note, if they don't 
deliver, we don't pay, so at most we're only out some time).

My take home lessons from this experience, so far anyway, are:

1.  Get the SOC and skip the salesmen.
2.  Unless the TEI discount is >20% the resellers will beat DEC's 
    real price (due to miscellaneous charges by DEC).
3.  Dealing with DEC's appointed sales replacement organizations is a lot
    like dealing with DEC, except that the sales rep has time to come and see 
    you.  Past that point, the prices are the same.


What would I change if I were you?

1.  If anybody even hints that they want something bigger than a PC, ship
    them the SOC, it's supplements, and a DEC direct catalog immediately.
    Don't wait for them to ask for it, offer to send it.  In fact, put this
    in your ads.  Yes, most of this material is available via Mosaic,
    but it was just more convenient having the books in hand.  Note that this
    is pretty much the strategy followed by DELL, Gateway, etc.  Unlike the PC 
    vendors, there better be somebody around who can answer some pretty 
    complicated technical questions, but my experience so far has been that
    there usually is. 

2.  I can't see how companies like Wyle are going to stay in this - their
    prices aren't any better than buying straight from DEC and the 
    resellers undercut them by a huge amount.  Perhaps if I were in the 
    market for integration services or some such they would make sense, but
    for just buying hardware, when I can figure out by myself what I need,
    they don't cut it.  Worse for you, they are liable to figure this out
    for themselves and so stay nominally in the game as DEC vendors so that 
    they can pick up whatever pigeons are around, and yet make little or no
    effort to move DEC equipment to most possible purchasers.  Ie, look 
    what happened with us, Wyle put in a sales pitch, but couldn't come 
    close on price, and so didn't end up selling anything.

3.  Eliminate "recoverall" and factory installation charges.  It is insane
    that you folks charge, for instance, $650 dollars to install a memory 
    card in the 2100.  When I order a unit from the factory, I expect that 
    the factory will put it together for no charge.  After all, we're not
    talking brain surgery here.  If your real costs to install a memory 
    card are even $60 then you've got major production problems.  Don't
    even get me started on the $300 charge for "installing" a 16 monitor!
    On the above quote, the "standard net amount" was $51153, but to have
    it all installed was an extra $2350.  What a fantasy.  I estimating the
    total time required that it would take me to install all of the pieces
    listed above as two hours. For a technician who does this all the time, 30
    minutes sounds about right, so a reasonable charge for the whole job
    would be about $100, or less than 5% of what you charge.  Also, if 
    somebody buys >$10000 of equipment, and the whole thing is the size of a 
    couple of big TVs, then you should just throw in some standard mode of
    shipping free. 


Expect a second installment of this saga only if there are problems with 
the equipment when delivered.

What's TEI?

Bob

    I beleive it is some sort of education program. 

    TEI is "The Education Initiative" which provides a 7% discount on hdwr
    (and other stuff) and up to 50% on licenses, etc.  I've been out of the
    EDU picture for a year or so, so the discounts may be different but the
    concept is the same.
    
    I might add, that unless the RFP submitted stated installation to be
    included, your customer has every option of installing his own
    equipment on site at no charge.  Memory, etc usually is factory
    installed unless the order is placed as a "SPARE" for which MFG will
    ship it by itself.  Recoverall is optional for any customer and should
    NOT have been quoted unless the "institution/customer" asked for it. 
    Most schools/state agencies/large companies are self insured and cannot
    purchase recoverall.....
    
    I'm sorry for your customer plight; but I deal with them all day on the
    same issues and unfortunately, I have no advice to give....
    
    Best of luck....
    
    Toodles.....JP

    If someone just sat down and created a Visual Basic Program and put
    that on the Internet to do customer configs, we could cut our cost of
    sale dramatically. Put in on a CDROM and have the customer call an 800#
    to get it. They could then point and click the configuration they want.
    This could then create a parts list which could be shopped around to
    resellers. We could even put the list of resellers on the disk and auto
    FAX them to each of the resellers for a quote. 
    
    The technology is here today to do this. It's not like building a
    bionic person. We don't have that technology today, but we do have the
    technology to handle the simple configs and we should do it now!

re: .4

What you have described is very similar to what we provide our business
partners who use DECgenisys.  And most of it is in Visual Basic.

Bob - DECgenisys Engineering

	A Bionic person only cost $6million. You realize that this is
	DEC and it would need to be architected. :-)

	It's an excellent idea tho. Better yet, ship it with every PC
	and allow dial-in updates to an 800 number.

							mike

    
    Re.0
    
    	From memory of the equipment list, let me offer these comments:
    
    1. I remember seeing RZ28-VA but nowhere to mount them - no BA353 or
    BA350 boxes;
    
    2. I saw a BC09D cable (SCSI) and an LPS17 but no Ethernet cabling.
    
    	I do hope that someone picked up these apparent shortages, or that
    the list was NOT a complete list of all that was ordered, or that these
    items already exist on site.
    
    				Malcolm.

	re: .7

1)	the RZ's mount in the StorageWorks cabinets *already in* the 2100....

2)	a) the BC09D is (probably) to connect external SCSI devices
	   that the customer already owns...

	b) there was no Ethernet wire for the 2100 either...I presume
	   the customer already owns such wiring........tech edit
	   would probably say nothing about this..........

	_kelley

    I don't have a current SOC in my office, but when I was still
    configuring systems in sales support you had to order OpenVMS AXP
    binaries, which are not in the config in .0 - and since it's his first
    AXP, he won't have them already.
    
    Granted, not worth $7k to find this out.

    Bucko...

    Comment.  This isn't selling.   This is order fulfillment.  We don't
    and shouldn't pay people a lot of money to do order fulfillment. 
    Selling is something different.
    
    

    
    	re:-1
    
    			AMEN, AMEN, AMEN
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    	Love the religious overtones....
    
    
    			the Greyhawk

    >... you had to order OpenVMS AXP
    > binaries, which are not in the config in .0 - and since it's his first..
    
    I checked a recent quote, and it appears the SW is factory loaded - so
    binaries are not an absolute necessity.