On Thu, 21 Jun 2001 johan@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Now is as good a time as any to post the following:
The average price for a Linux book is about $50 (maybe even less)
[alternative in brackets], thus:
RaQ 4 Technician (5 Chapters, 220 pp.) [None]
Does this mean that Sun Cobalt is selling the latter at $545?
It appears as if there is a huge opportunity for somebody to
document "the relationships between the browser-based GUI and
configuration files". One that I'm going to grab with both hands!
What we need to realize is that every person who masters the content of
the manual listed above may remove themselves from the potential list of
$200.00 per hour customers.
From a corporate bean-counter perspective, it makes perfect sense to
charge 2.725 hours of labor to allow a user to have the opportunity to
"remove" themselves from the customer list.
Becoming a Cobalt Certified Technician has a certain aura of
professionalism..but I'm hard pressed to remember the last ad I've seen
that asked for that certification.
But I suppose if one charges for time...you could justify the cost of the
manual as follows:
Given that the GUI creates the default page with an error, i.e.,
references to user pages at domain/users/username, rather than the way the
system creates it /domain/~username, calculate time taken to correct each
new site, multiply by your hourly rate, then you'll see how many new sites
it takes to justify the book.
Or...if you're in the habit of calling mailservers mail.yourdomain.com,
calculate the time to correct the default userpage to not use the cobalt
forced username@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Now, the cost of the boo looks better.
It would appear that Cobalt training is similar to the
appliances...designed for folks who don't know enough about the
non-appliance world to do anything other than "The Cobalt Way"
In a previous life I sold communications equipment...the vendors that
charged the most for support and offered the least help working around
their "creative" systems were the least often sold. Guess I wasn't the
only one with that mind set...those vendors are no longer around...but the
ones that supported their resellers are alive and well.
Perhaps the Cobalt bean-counters need to look at other industries with
longer histories to get a handle on customer service
Thom
baltimoremd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Thom LaCosta K3HRN Webmaster
_______________________________________________
cobalt-developers mailing list
cobalt-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://list.cobalt.com/mailman/listinfo/cobalt-developers