At 5:40 PM -0400 8/16/04, Gerald wrote:
I believe this is still an open legal argument waiting to be tested. They claim it, but no one has fought it yet. In federal law there is a concept called right of resale. Note article dates when reading: http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/14_11/federal/758-1.html http://articles.corporate.findlaw.com/articles/file/00353/009275 ...
If you buy a serious quantity of equipment (say: $10M+ each year) and are particularly annoying (who, me? ;-), then you can take some amusing contractual steps to insure that you receive the full useful value of your equipment purchases... This includes including the post-warranty maintenance plan costs in your total ownership cost comparison (to bring useful life out to match the three or five years deprecation life) and it also means requiring vendors to allow clear transfer in those cases where you need to remove equipment from the network and they turn down the option to buy it back themselves... Contractual mechanisms work very well, and all it takes is a willingness to turn away vendors in the lobby who otherwise thought you'd buy gear that loses half its resale value on receipt... /John