Re: [SAGE] to buy or not to buy service contracts

["Jerry Christopher" <jchristopher@amcc.com>]

We involve our internal customers in the decison as much as possible. 
 We evaluate the risks and look at the costs associated with different 
levels of the service contracts.  It can be a light or detailed analysis 
depending on the audience, but we typically come up with a short menu of 
choices.  Customer can weigh impact of risk on productivity and budget 
and help make the choice. Quick example,
gold option: 24/7 support, 1 hour onsite repair/replacement, $X amount - 
little risk, quick restore from downtime, high cost.
silver option: 12 hr support, 8hr onsite repair/replacement, 70% of $X 
amount, medium risk, same day restore, less cost.
bronze option: 8hr support, next day repair/replacement,  50% of $X 
amount, higher risk, next day restore, low cost.
No maintenance: Fix as possible, T&M or little to no cost, customer 
realizes risk and can live with the downtime while a solution is found.

In your case, I'd be reluctant to go without service unless I knew there 
were spare parts available and the expertise on hand to come up with 
workarounds - some others mentioned removing CPU, replacing P/S, etc - 
to keep the system going should you experience a failure.  Like John 
Jasen mentioned, I'd see if there were different levels of support 
available and get covered at the level of service your customer can 
handle, keeping in mind the budget constraints.

-Jerry

Jenn Sturm wrote:

> How does your shop run things? Do you buy the big service contracts? 
> Or do you take the gamble and keep reserve funds around?