On Mon, 14  Aug 1995 15:36:55 CDT  Chris Barnes <[log in to unmask]>
said:
 
>Presumably, Lsoft would  have developed and produced  the servers anyway
>(for other sites, competitive reasons, etc), so that is a sunk cost.
 
It's a cost that's very real (we support 13 brands of unix - the hardware
costs alone  are a significant investment),  and that someone has  got to
pay for, somehow. So,  the issue at hand is who pays  for this, and we've
chosen to make all our unix  customers share the bill, rather than giving
the traditional VM  sites free access to the unix  version and making the
unix-only sites foot  the bill. While there is no  perfect solution and a
case can  be made for  just about any  reasonable scheme, I  suspect that
you've  never tried  to  talk a  unix  bigot into  paying  extra so  that
mainframe sites can get free access to the unix version :-)
 
>I can understand the maintenance/support  for extra servers, but I would
>suspect that  the cost would be  nominal (more nominal than  the current
>5pt license that we're paying now).
 
Well, but  the license you're paying  for only costs $550/year,  and that
figure includes  both license  and maintenance.  Even if  it were  a pure
maintenance cost,  how much qualified manpower  can you buy with  $550 in
the DC area?  :-) Or, if you prefer a  more corporate-oriented angle, how
much would it  cost you to do  without the $550 unix  license and deliver
all your mail on VM? :-)
 
  Eric