scott wrote:
>> Now if you write the words "mission critical" on it, suddenly the same 

> 
> Not really, I assume the hardware is of a much higher specification than 
> some *really* cheap consumer version you could get for 20 quid.


every 15 minutes. If they go outside a preset range, an alarm goes off. 
How much would *you* suggest such a system costs?

>> But hey, it's mission critical. What are you gonna do? You simply 
>> *have* to have this thing, so basically you have to pay whatever they 
>> charge you. Which is probably _why_ they charge you so much. ;-)
> 
> Usually you have the option of other suppliers, so the price should be 
> pretty competitive for what you're getting. Otherwise they would go out 
> of business if everyone else could sell the same product for half the 
> price.

Apparently all the suppliers we could find were charging 5 figures for 
something that will do what we want. Seems absurd to me, but... mission 
critical, gotta have one, gotta be up and running before date X...

> If you were about to spend 10k on something, would you blindly take the 
> cheapest one without even bothering to see exactly what you were 
> getting? Sadly a lot of companies do exactly this, often with much 
> larger sums of money...

Well, you'd hope so... but as I say, I wasn't really involved in the 
process. I believe the hardware was all much the same, so they went with 
the cheapest option from a supplier who could actually supply on time.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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