I agree 100% with Jim. However, putting all the comparisons aside, we need to respect that some companies don't have budgets and management buy in like others. So they have to achieve the same solution with a lot less funding. Isn't that the reason why most people choose Dell's? Whilst 99.99999% of the time we sell HP's and IBM's, there is always going to be that one project we do every now and then that is based on Dell's. At the end of the day, you may not get the same performance and reliability out of them, but they still work and will do the job. Interesting comments about the 1855 blades though. Fancy a Dell salesman saying that. Rusty, I deployed a couple of 1850 1U servers a few weeks back, which are being used as Citrix Servers. The only catch was that we had to disable the DRAC Virtual Devices during the build process, as our 2nd partition was being set to E: and not D:. The Virtual CD ROM drive automatically took D: which failed our build process because we build Citrix servers with the Profiles (Documents and Settings) folder on the D: drive. Cheers. Kind regards, Jeremy Saunders Senior Technical Specialist Integrated Technology Services & Cerulean IBM Australia Level 2, 1060 Hay Street West Perth WA 6005 Visit us at http://www.ibm.com/services/au/its P: +61 8 9261 8412 F: +61 8 9261 8486 M: TBA E-mail: jeremy.saunders@xxxxxxxxxxx "Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.c om" To <jkenzig@xxxxxxxx thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx m> cc Sent by: thin-bounce@freel Subject ists.org [THIN] Re: OT: Dell PE 1855 Blade Servers 24/01/2006 04:47 AM Please respond to thin All I can say is this. When I make a decision it is an intelligent and informed one. One of the largest criterion for a decision I make when it comes to hardware and software(or any product for that matter) is the companies reputation in the industry, their experience with a given architecture, how long have they been and around and how long do I expect will they be around in the future. It is a rarity that I have made a poor decision. My ISP has never gone belly up, my cell phone company has never changed hands and neither have my utility companies I choose. Compaq, Dec have changed hands, as have gateway and a myriad of other hardware vendors. IBM has always been IBM and HP has always been HP. Both companies have been around a lot longer then Dell. IBM has been around since the early 1900's, HP has been around since the late 1930's and Dell only came onto the sc ene about 15 years or so ago. They have a long way to go before they catch up to IBM or HP. JK Roger Riggins <roger. wrote: So you choose IBM not because they have a better product, but because of their reputation? Just clarifying. Roger Riggins Network Administrator Lutheran Services in Iowa w: 319.859.3543 c: 319.290.5687 http://www.lsiowa.org -----Original Message----- From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 12:06 PM To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: Dell PE 1855 Blade Servers Um I wasn't comparing the hardware...I was comparing the companies and their stature in the industry. JK From: roger.riggins Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 12:27 PM To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: Dell PE 1855 Blade Servers I still donât get it. If there is no comparison in hardware, then you should be able to rattle off some differences that make it so. Roger Riggins Network Administrator Lutheran Services in Iowa w: 319.859.3543 c: 319.290.5687 http://www.lsiowa.org -----Original Message----- From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 11:18 AM To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: Dell PE 1855 Blade Servers You are reading between the lines. I was mearly stating to Roger that both IBM and HP hardware have a bigger stake in the server business and are more committed to it then Dell ever was or ever will be. I am sure that dell equipment runs just fine and serves your purpose but there really is no comparison. Dell still needs to grow up and decide what kind of company it is going to be. IBM and HP are already there. JK Evan Mann <emann@com> wrote: I've got a couple 7 year old Dell PE servers still running today that have had zero problems. On e of them is a data base server with heavy I/O and CPU use (it's now relegated to a testing machine, too slow obviously). So my experiences tells me that Dell ca n keep up just fine with the competitors in terms of quality of equipment, uptimes, etc. My support experiences have been top notch as well. Jim Kenzig CEO The Kenzig Group http://www.kenzig.com Sponsorships Available! Blog: http://www.techblink.com Terminal Services Downloads: http://www.thinhelp.com Windows Vista: http://www.VistaPop.com Virtualization: http://www.virtualize-it.com Games: http://www.stressedpuppy.com