Re: [cobalt-users] RaQ4

[Kris Dahl <krislists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 7/19/00 4:05 PM, Will DeHaan at will@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Brian Curtis wrote:
>> 
>> http://www.cobalt.com/products/raq/howmuch.html
>> 
>> Cobalt RaQ 4r (256MB DRAM, Dual 20.4GB HD RAID 1)  $3,999.00
>> Cobalt RaQ 4r (512MB DRAM, Dual 30.4GB HD RAID 1)  $4,799.00
>> 
>> Kind of steep IMO since it's software raid, still IDE internal drives, and
>> only supports 512mb PC100 RAM.
> 
> The high price does include commercial software. ASP is $795.  Notice
> that the minimum RAM configuration is now 256MB, all SKUs include the
> extra hardware features found in the "3i" so you'll be able to add many
> more ethernet/disk/coprocessing components.

How about offering a version that doesn't have ChilisoftASP?  In my opinion,
to the vast majority of the clients, the ASP package doesn't offer enough
value to warrant the additional cost.  I realize it is now a 'Cobalt'
product now, but people are not going to want to purchase something they
aren't going to use.  Its the same reason why it sucks to have to buy
licenses for MS software on normal PCs... its costs the consumer regardless
of weather they want it.

And personally, just the fact that you *have* to have Chilisoft ASP
installed is enough for me to completely abandon it.  It was bad enough that
Cobalt is choosing to support it more/instead of PHP. I think that is great
that PHP is now going to be officially supported, and realize that their are
costs involved with offering it.  But I think that if you choose to not have
ASP installed, but have PHP installed as well there is value--and people are
willing to pay for it.  At the same time they shouldn't have to pay the same
amount as the 'bundled' asp version of the Raq4.

I think you guys are making a big mistake, first with purchasing Chilisoft,
second for supporting it, and lastly for bundling it.  The company is
essentially alienating the community that they base their products along,
and it is definitely not an open-source project.  If the source was
released, I would be singing a different song.

Actually, its directly affecting Cobalt's coffers at this point.  We just
ordered 3 new VA Linux servers today.  The reason I recommend VA over Dell,
HP, SGI and Cobalt and other "Linux Friendly" OEMs?  Mostly because of their
support of the software that I use.  VA Linux saved me $200 on a MySQL
license for funding the development.  VA is doing stuff like Sourceforge,
Geocrawler, etc.  Things that make my life easier as a developer and as a
administrator.

Cobalt goes the exact opposite.  They go out and buy a company that
essentially is supporting closed source software (IDEs like VisualInterDEV ,
Windows NT, etc).  Then they keep it to themsleves, but essentially control
the licensing so they can give bundle it with their systems.  It would have
been okay if they had of purchased it with the intention of OSing it.  But I
bet the licensing deals with Microsoft make that difficult.

If VA had of been in a similar situation, they would have said: "We need to
support dynamic content, etc., on our machines.  PHP is pretty darned good,
its open source and pretty popular.  Instead of buying a company like
ChiliSoft, lets help fund and develop PHP, and spend the remainder funding
and developing an IDE.  That way we have all the advantages of an Open
Source solution, speed, satiability, security of PHP, while trying to null
MS ASP's 'advantage' on the developer tools.".

We made our commitment--Cobalt didn't gain our business due in no small part
because Cobalt was unwilling to do the same.

For those that are not aware, I used to work for a Cobalt TrueBlue Reseller.
I still administer several Cobalt machines and keep up to date on them.
I've been a fan for a long time.  We don't have any Cobalt gear at my new
place of employment, and the above listed reasons explain some of the why.

> It's not the fastest thing out there, but performs comparably to
> mid-grade P3 processors with Cobalt Linux.   We're not running Excel
> here, people ;-)

True...  But the on-die cache helps quite a bit when building dynamic,
serving database stuff, etc.  I wonder why no-one in the industry is using
AMD chips in a server role.  I think I know why: no SMP, non-intel chipsets
can be a bit flaky, can't get any AMD boards with built in SCSI (that I have
found), etc., etc. 

I'm not a die-hard Intel fan.  Whatever processor is best for the job.  The
old MIPS chips rocked.  Low power usage, etc.  PowerPC's are pretty nice,
UltraSPARCs and Alphas rock as well.  I have production servers running
PowerPC chips, and they are great.

I used to be a partner at a AMD, Cyrix and Intel authorized dealer.  I used
to run AMD.  On the desktop.  And we got burned big time on the K6
chips--the longer they ran the less consistent they got.  I don't know how
many K6 chips I replaced after being a year of use.  They were awesome when
they first came out, fast, etc.  But after a while they started to drop like
flies.

Perhaps they have worked out those problems--I haven't heard many Raq3
owners that have had their K6's die.  So I imagine a lot of that is gone.
But I have a hard time going with a vendor that hasn't always been as stable
as another vendor.  Its the same reason why I spend the extra 30-40% on a
IBM hard drive over Maxtor.  I don't care if the Maxtor is as fast as the
IBM.  The IBM drives have been rock-solid for the last 20 years.  3 years
ago Maxtor drives were considered utter crap.  A track record is
important--at least to me.

> cpu MHz         : 448.219344
> bogomips        : 894.57

FYI, as if bogomips means anything

Intel PIII 450
cpu MHZ           : 451.033
bogomips          : 901.12

I'd love to see this message being read by the product development groups.
We are Cobalt's target market... listening to us is a good idea.

-k