Netgear now touting open source WRT-compatible wireless router

[Bill McGonigle]

On Jul 3, 2008, at 13:30, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:

> Otherwise what would keep a person from not having a maintenance
> contract, allowing the system to break, and then getting a contract  
> when
> it does break?  At least CISCO gave you a path for putting it back on
> maintenance or buying used equipment and getting a maintenance  
> contract
> for it.

Yeah, that's reasonable if you want hardware support on it.  The  
thing is here, they won't even sell you an OS, at your risk, without  
a hardware contract.  I once was helping out a shop that needed a new  
Cisco fiber module, which wasn't supported by their Cisco IOS on  
their Cisco switch, and - long story short - it was cheaper to buy a  
'new' refurbed switch than to upgrade the IOS.  These most egregious  
situations do help you appreciate Free Software even more!

> They could have just said:  "Buy a new unit and keep it on  
> maintenance."

I think big Cisco shops expect this as just part of the package.   
Presumably they feel Cisco's offerings are worth the ongoing costs,  
so they put everything on maintenance.  On the other hand, SMB's  
often wind up getting into Cisco for what they find to be nearly  
affordable pricing and don't know the catch.  And then I help them  
move over to HP. :)

-Bill

-----
Bill McGonigle, Owner           Work: 603.448.4440
BFC Computing, LLC              Home: 603.448.1668
bill at bfccomputing.com		Cell: 603.252.2606
http://www.bfccomputing.com/    Page: 603.442.1833
Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/
VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf