As someone who was buying hardware in the late 1990s, it is hard to overstate the difference in buying experience between Sun or Digital (DEC) and someone like Dell. The former forced you into a live sales meeting, endless quote revisions, it was a nightmare. I remember calculating the server rails and power cords for a new Alpha server were going to cost more than a shipped/delivered Dell server that I could get the next day.
If you click through to the anecdote[0] mentioned in the article, the problem was not with having to contact a sales rep. In fact the startup wanted a sales rep. Sun specifically asked them to use the website:
> More than once though, the Sun people did suggest I just buy the servers off the web site.
Dell was just the only one to callback.
I don't doubt your experience but that was at the height of Sun's business, not it's nadir as this article is about.
coreyh14444 · · focus · HN ↗
schmichael · · focus · HN ↗
> More than once though, the Sun people did suggest I just buy the servers off the web site.
Dell was just the only one to callback.
I don't doubt your experience but that was at the height of Sun's business, not it's nadir as this article is about.
[0] - <a href="https://fullhoffman.com/2006/03/20/the-sun-doesnt-shine-on-me/" rel="nofollow">https://fullhoffman.com/2006/03/20/the-sun-doesnt-shine-on-m...