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Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

arstechnica.com

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Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#181

Post by mgkimsal »

poloniculmov wrote: post #162
mgkimsal wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 years ago, why would anyone have bothered to use MS Word when nobody used it in the workplace? Everyone used WordPerfect or WordStar. If you had a generation of kids who have experience with openoffice, it'll be much more likely that openoffice would be something that would be adopted over time - newly formed companies using it, gradual shift away from MS Office, etc. MS knows their history, and will continue to s…

I don't think that's public education's role.

What isn't? Indoctrinating students in MS Office? Or OpenOffice? Or Apple products?

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#182

Post by theorique »

prawn wrote: post #67
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree. I'm just saying I can kind of see where they are coming from.

Who, Cisco? I wouldn't be excusing their actions in a hurry. Everyone in this deal should be advising as though they are spending their own money. You can spend a lot of money, but would you if it were you own and you had other things to consider in a budget?

Do they get a bonus or other benefit if they act as if they are spending their own money, or alternatively, punished if they do not act as such?

In other words: if there's no incentive, what difference does it make?

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#183

Post by prawn »

theorique wrote: post #182
prawn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who, Cisco? I wouldn't be excusing their actions in a hurry. Everyone in this deal should be advising as though they are spending their own money. You can spend a lot of money, but would you if it were you own and you had other things to consider in a budget?

Do they get a bonus or other benefit if they act as if they are spending their own money, or alternatively, punished if they do not act as such? In other words: if there's no incentive, what difference does it make?

I'm saying they should. Not that they will.

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#184

Post by poloniculmov »

mgkimsal wrote: post #181
poloniculmov wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's public education's role.

What isn't? Indoctrinating students in MS Office? Or OpenOffice? Or Apple products?

Exactly. It should just teach the industry standard, which in this case is MS Office. It's not the education systems' role to push for open source solutions.

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#185

Post by jimmaswell »

stdbrouw wrote: post #100
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #89

What's worse than overpaying millions for a few routers? Overpaying billions. At the federal level, specifically to prevent such things from occurring, there's this huge byzantine procurement process. A process that is literally worth tens of billions of dollars to game. So if you have product foo and want to see a zillion copies of it to the feds instead of some freeware or cheaper solution? 1) Convince somebody on…

The trouble is that you actually do need some of this flexibility in the procurement process. If your department needs Photoshop, you don't want some goofy non-technical auditor telling you that he googled around and thinks GIMP will do just fine. Or you want one particular contractor because just last year they did an amazing job on something that was pretty much exactly what you need.

gimp generally would do just fine, wouldn't it?

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#186

Post by SEMW »

ripter wrote: post #179
megablast wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not one or the other, it is both of them. If Cisco wants to be treated like untrustworthy rip off artists, then they acted the right way. People will take note.

If I go to an Apple store and buy a $3,000 computer is it apple's fault that I only needed an iPad? Hell no. I'm the one that ordered a $3,000 computer, signed off on the agreement, and forked over the cash. Cisco acted like a business, you can't blame them for that.

> Cisco acted like a business, you can't blame them for that

Any time someone on hn complains about some business ripping them off, some variant of this comment usually gets posted. And it completely misses the point.

The point isn't moral blameworthiness. It's sharing of information. Some people may prefer to buy from a company they believe they can trust to give good advice about which of their products will meet their needs best. Others may not care about that and will buy just on the basis of the product. A company happy to sell products they know are overkill is making a business decision, to increase profit in the short term at the risk of losing the former kind of customer in the long term.

So reacting to criticism of a company overselling by defending their right act that way in a market is confused. The goal isn't armchair moralising, it's sharing information about them so that people can make more informed choices about who to do business with.

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#188

Post by dontstealmyname »

tdoggette wrote: post #80
scotty79 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country government officials are usually paid to be this stupid. I can't imagine USA government officials are this stupid for free. I know ... never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity, but come on! Someone sure got at least a nice car out of it.

I chuckled. It is, in fact, quite easy to imagine that American bureaucrats (as a collective) are that stupid. I'm not discounting the other possibility, though.

This is the first thing I thought of when I read this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTSCRoYyM-Y

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