[K12OSN] So close....

[David H. Barr]

On 11/8/06, Accessys at smart.net <accessys at smart.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 8 Nov 2006, David H. Barr wrote:
>
> >
> > On 11/8/06, marrandy <marrandy at chaossolutions.org> wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 08 November 2006 10:41, Eric Brown wrote:
> > > > Our problem with dealing with Dell directly is that they will often
> > > > quote us higher prices than if we were Joe Public walking in off the
> > > > street.  Our principal has even resorted to using his personal credit
> > > > card and purchasing computers to save several hundreds of dollars per
> > > > machine.
> >
> > > How do you save several hundreds ($600/$700/$800) of dollars per machine ?
> > > What   'machine'  are you talking about ?
> >
> > When I was in the nonprofit sector, I would typically end up a)
> > determining what spec machine I wanted, b) carting it up in home and
> > small business desktop and workstation lines, and c) sending the
> > lowest of those four quotes to my representative who would typically
> > match or beat it.
>
> biggest problem I have with Dell is they will not sell me a machine
> without software installed, this is especially a problem with laptops

They -will- sell you a system without a software license, but they
will -also- charge you extra for the favor.

http://www.dell.com/nseries for the freeDOS systems (nothing installed).

The cheapest machine you can get there is about $329 with no floppy or
optical: celeron, 256MB, 80GB
The cheapest machine you can get elsewhere is about $279 with optical
and Windows, sans floppy: sempron, 512MB, 80GB

My working theory is that Dell gets a kickback from companies that
make all the pre-installed garbage one has to wipe off first thing.

-dhbarr.