[gamblor956]

That's how negotiations work. Vendor makes an offer based on their understanding of your company's needs (usually based on an RFP or initial discussion), your company pushes back on price (if its needs are met) or indicates that it has greater needs and vendors revises the offerings and ups the price. Sometimes they offer a low price to get a potential customer to bite but if they don't accept immediately they withdraw the price because that customer is going to be the kind that demands/needs extra hand-holding. (My current $dayjob does that. If a customer isn't sophisticated enough to take a good price when they're offered it, it means they're going to require a fair amount of extra work so we withdraw the price and the next offer will be significantly higher.)

Also...it's still Red Hat. They're owned by IBM but they're still allowed to operate independently.

But back to the original point: you shouldn't be paying as much for OpenShift as you were for the equivalent VMWare offering. We used OpenShift at my last job and VMWare at the one before it; OpenShift was cheaper than VMWare was before the Broadcom acquisition.

[belfalas]

You're leaving out bending the customer over the barrel come renewal time once services are migrated and there's lock-in.

And sorry bud, but the whole "operating independently" thing...I don't buy it. I've worked for too many companies that were owned by someone else and purported to operate independently. It's just a flat-out lie.

[gamblor956]

I've worked for too many companies that were owned by someone else and purported to operate independently. It's just a flat-out lie.

I don't doubt it, given that this has been Broadcom's MO from the beginning. But IBM is not Broadcom, and while they've definitely messed things up, they've recognized the value in letting Red Hat remain independent.

You're leaving out bending the customer over the barrel come renewal time once services are migrated and there's lock-in.

This is easily resolved by negotiating a longer contract, and planning for alternative vendors prior to the expiration of said contract. The amount of the potential increase at renewal is capped at the cost of switching (see, for example...all the VMWare customers switching off VMWare because its significantly cheaper to take the one-time switching costs than to pay 1000x every year).

This is all part of basic Negotiating 101. It sounds like your company isn't any good at it, and they could save a lot of money by getting better negotiators. (Now you know why Legal gets paid $$$ to play solitaire most of the day.)

[belfalas]

I guess we just don't see eye to eye on these things, which is okay. I freely admit that my employer isn't too sharp on its use of technology. But I also won't be convinced that folks like Red Hat and IBM aren't total bloodsuckers. :)