> -----Original Message----- > From: Jon Lewis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 8:23 AM > To: Ted Mittelstaedt > Cc: Aaron; Justin Shore; Cisco-nsp > Subject: Re: [c-nsp] MTBF for Cisco products > > > On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > > For a $20K device you better damn well understand it IS low. > > > > Name me one single automaker out there who could get away with > > building a car that would stop running after 4.5 years. > > Name a car that will go 4.5 years of daily use without needing any parts > replacement. >
A Cisco router won't route a single packet if power is not supplied. Strange that they don't list this as a failure. Under your logic it would be. MTBF on an entire system has no meaning if your going to include the items in that system that are supposed to be replaced regularly as part of the normal preventative maintainence. A great many cars will go a lot longer than 4.5 years without replacement of non-preventative maintainence parts such as spark plugs, oil filters, etc. > cisco's warranty has always sucked...I assume as incentive for customers > to buy smartnet (extended warranty/support). > It's a lot worse than that, actually. The Cisco party line is that the warranty is 30 days. Probably because 30 days is the amount of time specified by the Uniform Commercial Code. However, in reality, you cannot buy a Cisco router from anyone other than a dealer or distributor, and both of those will charge -massive- restocking fees if you just try returning it for credit, and the distributors will argue and stall and make it damn near impossible to return a router under the 30 day warranty that simply has arrived DOA or fails within a week of service and was purchased without a service contract. Thus, effectively the 30 day warranty for non-Smartnet-covered gear does not exist. But, the warranty has really nothing to do with MTBF. MTBF is what the manufacturer is telling you basically this is how long we DESIGNED the thing to last - any time more than this that you get is just your good luck. A warranty is what the manufacturer is telling you is how long we are going to GAMBLE that the thing will last. This is a huge difference because the manufacturer knows that if they use crap parts, they are going to get all of the failures back, and they will pay for this, whereas they won't get any offsetting benefit for the devices that greatly exceed the warranty period. (assuming a standard bell curve applies to device failures, which it generally does) Thus from the manufacturers POV, they are going to either pay more money for better parts or more money for warranty replacements - either way they will pay for it. Thus, there is no financial savings in making the thing with crap parts and the bad-will engendered by doing so typically keeps the manufacturer from willingly going there. With the first few years of a new Cisco router service contract such a small amount of the total price of the router, Cisco effectively is extending a warranty of several years over their new gear, so the same market forces apply. As for an incentive to buy SmartNet, that is pretty apparent. SmartNet's hardware replacement is nothing more than a fancy insurance policy. For it to make money for Cisco, Cisco has to take in more money in SmartNet fees than they pay out in hardware replacement. Thus it is a guarantee that SmartNet will always be a losing deal for the customer. However - that loss will ONLY appear over a statistical average of a number of devices. Thus, a customer that buys several hundred Cisco routers will very likely SAVE money by NOT buying SmartNet on ANY routers, and just assuming that they will lose a few during their service life. A customer that only buys 1 router will still MORE LIKELY never take advantage of the hardware replacement on it - BUT if they DO take advantage of it, buying the Smartnet will most likely be cheaper than paying for a complete replacement. It's no different than buying Comprehensive car insurance on your car. If you were to only buy collision, and take the additional money you would have spent on comprehensive and sock it into a savings account, by the time your 65 you would be ahead. But, having a positive balance in that account when your 65 won't allow you to replace your car at age 22 if a tree blows down on it and you have little money in that account. The thing about these low MTBF figures that I feel is disgusting is that it is clearly Cisco spending money to try to "punish" a minority of customers. The majority of Cisco customers buy and maintain Smartnet for more than 4.5 years on their new, high-dollar Cisco routers. It's obviously easy to show from a business case decision why it would be economically stupid not to do this. This means that the majority of these 4.5 year MTBF routers are going to be replaced by Cisco. In short, Cisco will lose money on this product line. If you don't understand why, then run the numbers, if you don't know how to do this, then gimme your retail price your paying and I'll run them and show you. However, a minority of customers obviously don't run SmartNet on their routers. Apparently, Cisco has decided that they are going to punish those customers by making a product they know will most likely fail during it's lifetime of ownership by those customers - and thus those customers will suffer as they will have to pay for a new router. This is not justifyable as a business decision. Remember the Ferengi saying - there is no profit in revenge. That is what is going on here. Cisco is deliberately planning on losing money on a product line to "teach a lesson" to some of the customers that don't buy a service contract. And along the way of doing this - they are going to toss all the rest of the customers into the drink since the rest of them, even though they may get reimbursed on the hardware by SmartNet - they will NEVER get reimbursed for their additional labor losses incurred by having to replace at a more frequent time period, nor for the ill-will generated with their own customers when these devices fail early. (nor, in fact, for the additional money that they have to spend on smartnet, as under this scheme smartnet becomes a required, rather than an optional, purchase) Ted _______________________________________________ cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected] https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
