[K12OSN] switch advice: Netgear or 3com

["Terrell Prudé, Jr."]

Les Mikesell wrote:

>On Mon, 2004-09-27 at 18:36, "Terrell Prudé, Jr." wrote:
>  
>
>>Were Cisco, in this scenario, to have told us, "Oh, you've got to pay 
>>yet extra on top of the promised support since you're running Macs and 
>>not Windows PCs," then they'd have lost a big customer in a hurry. 
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, but Cisco doesn't give free support to anybody.
>
>---
>  Les Mikesell
>   les at futuresource.com
>  
>

I agree, if you're referring to phone support.  Catalyst 35x0 IOS is, 
though, free as in beer to download from their WWW site.

However, the fact that Cisco doesn't give free phone support is not the 
point.  Rather, it's that they follow what they do agree to.  Cisco 
states that any computer that's 10BaseT, 100BaseTX, or 1000BaseX 
(specifically SX, LX, or T) will work with their Catalyst 3500XL and 
3550 switches.  My district agreed to those terms when we bought Cisco 
gear and got SMARTnet.  If Cisco were to then turn around and say, "OK, 
*on top of what we've already agreed to with your SMARTnet*, you've got 
to pay yet extra for us to talk to you if you've got Macs on our 
switches", then this would be equivalent to what Norbert is experiencing 
with Netgear.  Fortunately, Cisco didn't do that.  :-)


The point is, Netgear claimed that their stuff was Linux-friendly, and 
apparently it isn't without having to go through a bunch of hoops.  
Therefore, that means it isn't Linux-friendly.  They mis-represented 
their product, which is supposed to work with Linux, with what comes in 
the box, with a reasonable expectation of not having to nearly become a 
kernel hacker (slight exaggeration, I'm sure, but it sounds like that's 
not too far off).  If I were Norbert, I'd take that Netgear equipment 
back and get a refund, then buy something from a company that supports 
their customers like they say they will.

This is the kind of vendor shenanigan for which we should be watching, 
and we should then vote with our dollars.  I sure do.

--TP