At 11:14 17/05/2002 -0700, you wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Jacobs <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Friday, May 17, 2002 10:09 am Subject: RE: [cobalt-users] New RaQ 550 > They are trying to compete, but apple knocked them so far out of > the ring you can hardly see them..... So I guess that means you'll be buying Apple products from now on, and we won't have to see you on the list anymore...
he might be like me, not going to buy and NEW cobalt products because we are totally unimpressed, but still own old (obsolete?) cobalt products, if owning obsolete cobalt product means one is not welcome on this list that's fine by me, I'll un-subscribe tomorrow, and I suggest that after I am gone the name is changed from "Cobalt Users" to "Current Model Cobalt Users".
I use a RAQ3, a couple of RAQ4 and an XTR, but I *own* some RAQ2's which I bought cheap second hand, as such the rented boxes means that I will never get anything from Sun/Cobalt, even indirectly (like an official upgrade from PHP 4.0.3 for god's sake) and it for this reason that my main colo is throwing out all the blue boxes now that the RAQ550 is a known quantity (good news for me) and of course my RAQ2 fell off the roadmap waaaaay back (bad move cobalt)
This list is not for users of some recreational product, we are all in the business of making money, now if Sun / Cobalt is going to take the opinion that because they didn't make a red cent out of me this year, or last, I can bugger off out of their list I will, quite happily. However, I am in business, and come 2003 when Sun release the RAQ750 with an UltraSPARC and Solaris they had better understand even before they start developing it next week that unless they get the clue that their customers (us) are just like our customers, getting and keeping a good one is an ongoing process, that next week a conversation I have with someone may influence the purchase of 2,000 units instead of just 20, or the 10 units tender that came in last week which if it goes ahead will for the first ten of a two cabinet cluster, because believe me buddy there are enough other manufacturers out there who DO think this way, because they have to to survive.
The RAQ2 was an ***excellent*** design, very cheaply made, good profit margins for Cobalt, did the job, consumed little power, ran stone cold, if only they can chosen a different RISC processor and socketed it properly so it could be upgraded... nobody buys a new 1.6 ghz PC to replace their old, obsolete 1 ghz PC. they buy a new CPU and slam that bugger in, 3.5 inch hard drives that same, standard form factor since 50 Mb was a big disk, I am sorry Bruce but ANYONE who makes a new, commercial product that is based on things that are ALREADY marked on the roadmap as nearing extinction (such as P3) has missed the beat, the "slocket adapter" allows me to upgrade my once cutting edge Slot 1 Pentium 2/300 box to P3 celeron/900 for less than UK£1000.
Do Sun / Cobalt offer me an upgrade path where I can buy a new system board (at any cost, much less a reasonable one) and upgrade my RAQ2 to a RAQ4? No they don't, which is why my XRAQ2 project which uses a 100 buck VIA eden mobo (that is 100 bucks including the CPU, just add ram) to replace the RAQ2 mainboard, just add ram and bingo 900 bogomips same as a RAQ4, plus it has onboard video, ethernet, etc, runs redhat 7.3 / php 4.2 etc out of the box, a copy of Plesk is pocket change because the ONLY alternative Sun / Cobalt offer me is buy a new 550, and I won't, because I am NOT goint to put myself in the position where in a couple of years time I have to buy a NEW Sun / Cobalt box and then try and get 300 bucks for my obsolete RAQ550.
We ALL need to be able to make a decent profit out of Sun / Cobalt products, or we ALL (including Sun / Cobalt employees) better start polishing those resume's.
Don't shoot the messenger just because you can't sell him something this year Bruce, otherwise you will never be able to sell him anything ever again, and that is self-inflicted chapter 11.
cheers -- ================================ jb@xxxxxxxxxxxx / www.surfbaud.org / 2002 ================================