[Ambassadors] DVD Media for North America

[David Nalley]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Clint Savage <herlo1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> So I anticipated this somewhat, but was hoping the prices were a bit
> closer to the CD media.  It turns out the media company we chose for
> replicating CDs gave us a great price:
>
> Item                            Quantity       Price per Disc
> Total Price
>
> x86 Live CDs                3000             $.576                       $1728
>
> These discs are in production and are slated to arrive on my doorstep
> December 23.  (A discussion of distribution has already been had, so
> please don't address that here.)
>
> Unfortunately, and it makes total sense, the DVD media requires more
> components and such, so the pricing is a bit higher:
>
> x86 Install DVDs          3000            $.785                        $2355
> x86_64 Install DVDs    3000            $.785                        $2355
>
> Which brings us to the dilemma.  The budget we just finished at
> yesterday's meeting indicates that we wanted two runs of DVDs at
> $1800.  Had I been thinking about it, the costs should have been
> higher for DVDs over CDs, so I apologize for the at oversight.
> However, the dilemma still remains, thus we have some options.  I
> discussed some of this with folks in IRC this evening and here are the
> options I see possible.
>
> Option 1:  Produce Live CDs for x86_64 as well as a smaller run of x86
> Install DVDs (approximately $1800 worth)
> Option 2:  Produce smaller amounts of the installer DVDs (both x86 and
> x86_64), approximately 2300 could be produced at this price.  The
> price point might be higher, I've got an email into the media company
> asking this exact question.
> Option 3:  Produce more Live CDs of x86_64 and then add Live CDs for
> x86 (or respins if they are ready soon).  This would ignore the
> install DVDs totally, and isn't an unreasonable idea, but I'm not for
> this one.
>
> There are probably other options, combinations of these that I didn't
> list because of time/space.  If you think one of these are viable,
> let's talk about them over the next couple days.  I'd like to place
> the order on Friday before 5pm EST.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clint
>
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>

I am somewhat disappointed in timing of stuff in production. Given
that we handed over an ISO ~20th of November this means their time to
produce is going to be in excess of a month. In addition the date
keeps slipping. That said - I am not in favor of us ordering again
before we have the CDs in hand, esp. given their continued schedule
slips. Perhaps we can use that as leverage to get media sooner. Since
we have an additional 5 days I'd argue we should put the DVD order out
for bid, if for no other reason than to have pricing leverage and
other options should we not like the product. We already know we don't
like their timing.
What were their terms on delivery guarantee? (I thought it was 10 days
after we provided an ISO) Part of the reason that this is such a
concern from my perspective is that we a really short window - 6
months - that media is really able to be used. 23rd puts us almost 1
month past release. Another month waiting on DVDs (or 2 months given
that it's two different ISOs) puts us 1/3 or 1/2 way through the
cycle, which IMO is untenable. Perhaps we need to evaluate using some
of the 3600 money for on-demand delivery from Karlie and use the
balance for ordering what can be delivered.

That said - if we can work out the scheduling problems, option 2 seems
more realistic.