Jim Royce bemoans the hidden cost of options:

> Back in September 1997, I called HP to find out the price of
> the new 100Base-T Network Adapter (B5427AA) for the HP3000.
> We were given a verbal quote of $1,795.00 with Option 001.

> Now we're getting ready to order the 100Base-T card and ....
> there is an Option UAT (Unlimited user license) for $8,000.00!!!

Been there;  done dat....   Same thing happened to us, going
through the HP Federal Business Center last September.  We
got a quote for two cards (were planning to run two 100 Mbit
subnets into our 959 at that time).  We lucked out a little bit in
two ways:

(1)  We have only a 100 user license (all those client jobs
      don't count against that limit);  100BaseTX for 100 users
      was a lot let than UNLIMITED.

(2)  With the 100 Mbit switching hub setup we are ending up
      with, decided we could get along with just one card...  So
      cut our order in half;  ended up being just slightly more
      than original quote for two cards to get one card.

> ..... (There was a post to this list about this option back in
> October 7, 1997, but I missed it).

That might well have been me.  Thought back then I was going
to get away with getting the cards for the quoted price, since we
had already put in our order... No such luck;  turned out the type
of small-purchase contracting process we used does not lock in
the contract price until the items are shipped.... !@#$%^&*   :-((

> The biggest rant is that this very same card, with a
> different part number (A3495A), is available for the HP9000
> for the same price ($1,795.00), but (to my knowledge) does
> not require an Option UAT!

deja vu, all over again....

hmmmm.... wonder what would happen if we changed our order
to two A3495A's ???....  I did this on the two external HP DLT
4000 drives we ordered and received just recently:  The "for
HP 9000 and NT" version was a different part number and a lot
cheaper...   But again, those were external, standalone units.
Putting a 9000 part inside the card cage of an HP 3000 would
probably be a different story;  at least if you want to continue
to keep the machine on an HP support contract...  Given that
we live or die by the Cat 5 wire now, having the supported part
in the box is probably worth the price....

Also trying to end on a somewhat positive note:  Getting
100BaseTX directly into the 3000 from our high-speed switching
hubs will of course give us an order-of-magnitude bigger pipe
into the box.

Ken Sletten