Force10 Gear - Opinions

[davei at otd.com (Dave Israel)]

Paul Wall wrote:
>
> Please realize that the above is list vs. list.  Cisco 6500 series
> hardware is extremely popular in the secondary market, with discounts
> of 80% or greater on linecards, etc common, furthering the argument
> that Cisco is the cheaper of the two solutions.
>   

Secondary market prices aren't a fair measure, unless you include the 
corresponding cost for software and support.  And the fact is, when we 
put this out for an RFP, we ended up with Force10 having the lowest 
price by a fair margin; the closest competitor in price was Foundry, 
with Cisco a distant third.  List prices aren't a good measure o actual 
price; they're a number for salesmen to compare their discount to to 
make people feel special.

In short: You can get the Force10 cheap.