North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Followup British Telecom outage reason

  • From: jerry scharf
  • Date: Mon Nov 26 11:34:46 2001

--On 11/26/2001 09:22:01 AM -0500 Christopher A. Woodfield wrote:

My first thought in response to this is the vendor's support costs -
wouldn't shipping more reliable images bring down those costs
signficantly? Or is it just that the extra revenue opportunities gained
by adding $WHIZBANG_FEATURE_DU_JOUR outweigh those potential support
savings?

-C

What's the upside to $ROUTER_VENDOR in reducing support cost? They already make money on the support but can't make too much, so a reduction in cost would probably imply a reduction in revenue. Also, given that network engineering rarely make support cost a key issue in vendor selection and negotiation, reducing support costs look like they have little payback to $ROUTER_VENDOR in terms of equipment sold. With that, $WHIZBANG_FEATURE_DU_JOUR, sure looks like a good profit decision.

To change this, stop buying gear from vendors that charge too much for support.

just my jaded opinion,
jerry