North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Calling all NANOG'ers - idea for national hardware price quote registry

  • From: David Ulevitch
  • Date: Fri Sep 16 18:47:46 2005 
On Sep 16, 2005, at 2:48 PM, Matt Bazan wrote:
Actually, not the case. CDW and Dell (and all the others) only publish
their prices for the low end gear that they sell. Anything else
requires a call to a rep and establishing a relationship.
This is not true, particularly with places like CDW or Insight, etc. I don't buy enough from Dell but I imagine it's the same.

There are usually three prices:
1) The price on the website, if listed at all.
2) The price on the website after logging in and getting your "special pricing" based on what company/login/who you know/etc.
3) The price you get by calling your sales rep and demanding better/volume/blackmail pricing.

Anyways, this whole idea strikes me as a bad one for all the reasons others have mentioned but particularly because just knowing the price someone else has doesn't mean that you will get the price, in fact, you might find yourself on the receiving end of "have a nice day dealing with vendor Z" -- particularly if they already know you are set on using them as your vendor and you'll come back to them begging. It's a game of poker bluff all you want but then be comfortable walking away without making a deal.

-david