>>For the same money I could build
> a clutster
> > of what, 30 linux boxes? Don't tell me programmer time has got that
> > expensive? Or that thinking about what you're doing stopped
> happening?
> > If it's good enough for Google...
> >
> > Help me out here!
>
> It is good kit (and alot of it is rebadged stuff - with nice
> blue / gray
> boxes and Sun stickers).
>
> But it's also a marketing thing .... I know tow clients whom purchased
>
It's also a support thing. Sun's support service is very good, and although
it costs _as much as the hardware again_ you can't get it unless you buy the
hardware in the first place. Yes, this results in truly horrendous costs,
but then you can just pick up the phone and say 'This thing doesn't boot,
fix it today please'. No paperwork, no "I'll need your customer id and this
is your ticket number if you have any questions", just "our engineer will be
there in 45 minutes".
Also, remember that large companies can negotiate discounts approaching 50%
on much of the kit.
That all said, Sun's low end offerings, like the T1 are neat machines but
not good value. You can buy two 1-unit no-brand intel boxes with Linux for
the same price. When you are looking at the E420Rs and such, there aren't
really Intel boxes in the same arena except maybe from HP and Compaq, and
they cost nearly as much.
