23 Apr
2012
23 Apr
'12
6:26 p.m.
One thing that always puzzles me is that if Oracle
Solaris boxes are
so reliable why does a years support on one cost so much more
(typically 5 to 8 times more) than a years support on an similar spec
IBM or HP Intel or AMD box?
Others have mentioned two probable parts of this ("because it can" and
"if it's expensive it must be valuable").
I offer for consideration another possible part: the level of support
is different. While I am not familiar with modern support contracts of
either sort, I speculate that the Oracle support contract specifies
much tighter constraints on the supporter's performance (response time,
time to repair, etc), higher penalties if they aren't met, and a wider
net for what it covers. (As compared to the other contract, of
course.) I do know that, back when I did know a little bit about
support contracts, that such things had a a substantial effect on the
price of the contract.
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