Actually, the fabs are in Dresden and Austin; there is no Houston fab. The AMD CPUs are all manufactured in Dresden these days as the Austin fab has switched over to doing memory (flash). Packaging is over in Asia (Singapore and Malaysia mainly).
I actually administer some Citrix MetaFrame servers (really Windows 2000 servers) that we use to provide MS Office capability to about 100 UNIX (HP) users. It works great, and we currently only have 5 medium-horsepower PC servers to do it. But a few comments:
1) If you're trying to save money, dont' even think of using MetaFrame servers to serve out Office. We do it only because we are already using UNIX for everything, and don't want to buy (or administer) PCs. But you won't save money on Office licenses by moving to MetaFrame. Microsoft is really funny about the way they license software for MetaFrame servers, and they basically require a license for every client that could possibly connect...even if it's impossible (due to lack of MetaFrame licenses) for them all to connect at once. So legally, you'd still need the same number of Office licenses as you have now, not to mention the licenses for Windows 2000 (or NT or XP) server, MetaFrame, and all the stupid Windows 2000 Terminal Server Client Access licenses...the last of which again requires a license for every possible client. If we didn't have a site license for Windows 2000 and Office here, I'd probably give up!
2) The "specialized" apps may not work too well on MetaFrame. If the apps are not written correctly, they do not work well when installed on a Terminal (MetaFrame) Server due to the shared nature of the system...basically, files/settings are placed in non-shareable locations, and things are hosed. This isn't to say your apps won't work, but there's a definate chance. Take, for instance, some of the tools included with Office 2000...the Microsoft Photo Editor won't even install onto Windows 2000 Terminal Server because it doesn't work right. You'd think Microsoft at least could write products that would work! (Actually, the core Office tools do work, but some of the utilties, like Photo Editor, don't).
Just want you to be aware of some of the gotchas... I've spent enough time suffering through them myself trying to figure out what was wrong to know it's a pain sometimes!
I realize/. readers are, in general, pretty pc-centric, but the idea of renewing licenses after a period is hardly new. Take a look at the EDA market, for example. Almost ALL of the software uses this type of licensing scheme.
I work at a company doing IC design, and basically all of our tools use this model. Some sample tools/companies: HSpice (Avant!), Powermill (Synopsys), Calibre (Mentor Graphics), VSS (Synopsys), HSim (Nassda), Virtuoso (Cadence), etc, etc. Everyone uses this scheme. Most of our software has to be renewed every year (and for a much larger fee than MS charges for Windows/Office/etc, I might add).
For the average medium-to-large business, this really is not a big deal. Where this change might be more of a problem is the smaller, mom and pop businesses, who can barely afford the software once. But after three years, it's really time to upgrade anyway.
Anyway, the point is look beyond the PC market and you'll see that this concept has been in use for many years. PC users are just used to getting things cheap. Not that MS products are cheap (in fact, I'd say they're disgustingly overpriced), but in the business world, subscriptions aren't a big deal.
I don't think it necessarily matters how much you pay. Most of the comments here seem to be centered around PCs, and in that model, yeah, it probably does matter what vendors you use.
But let's look at the commercial UNIX market. We have about 100 HP-UX systems, and we've been paying HP a ton of money (I don't even know the sum...but it's many tens of thousands of dollars) every year for their premium support, which is supposed to guarantee 4 hour on-site response. Their hardware support has been absolutely horrible. I haven't seen 4 hour response in about a year, and we're lucky to see next day response. Even with systems down, we sometimes don't see a tech on-site for a day or two, and half the time they've never even seen that type of system, bring the wrong parts, or screw things up worse. One of them managed to hose half the OS in the process of installing a new motherboard, because he didn't know how to check the LAN ID and nuked half the networking settings. We've had to kick a couple of the people out of the building because they were just making things worse.
I can understand that sometimes parts aren't available. But untrained staff is really dangerous, especially when you're talking about nice, expensive, multiuser UNIX systems. It's pretty frustrating to have a $40 or $50,000 system, which is supposed to be serving a number of users and batch jobs, down for 4 days because the techs don't know what they're doing.
The companies really need to make sure to train their people as to what is good customer service, is the bottom line. Some of our HP techs will call us, leave a voicemail, and that's it. We all have our pager numbers on our voicemail, but they don't bother to page us. So of course by the time we get the message, they've gone home for the day.
One of our software vendors is equally frustrating. One of their tools was crashing back the UNIX prompt several times a day for about 90% of our users. It took us about 3 different tech support people to even find somebody that understood the tool well enough to understand that it shouldn't crash during zooms or pans. Then, it took us about 3 more calls to convince them that this is not acceptable behavior. "well, just restart it when it crashes". Excuse me? I really shouldn't have to waste time convincing someone that crashing is bad... Oh, and we pay these guys a ton of money for support every year too.
It's not like we're idiots over here, either. We call support for two reasons... 1) we have hardware down (hardware failures) and 2) we find a bug. I would say only about 5% of our calls turn out to be something we're doing wrong. It's not like we're asking how to use the mouse or anything... It's not like we're using bad vendors either...HP, for example, is generally considered to be a really good company.
We've taken our complaints all the way up to the directors and VPs of several companies, and we pretty much get ignored. It's funny though how after we decided not to pay for 4 hour support anymore and switch to next day, suddenly they're interested in our problems.
Seems to me that support can be (and often is) just as crappy if you pay a ton as if you didn't pay at all. Half the time I have better luck resolving problems on the web than through the support we pay for.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the fabs are in Dresden and Austin; there is no Houston fab. The AMD CPUs are all manufactured in Dresden these days as the Austin fab has switched over to doing memory (flash). Packaging is over in Asia (Singapore and Malaysia mainly).
I actually administer some Citrix MetaFrame servers (really Windows 2000 servers) that we use to provide MS Office capability to about 100 UNIX (HP) users. It works great, and we currently only have 5 medium-horsepower PC servers to do it. But a few comments:
1) If you're trying to save money, dont' even think of using MetaFrame servers to serve out Office. We do it only because we are already using UNIX for everything, and don't want to buy (or administer) PCs. But you won't save money on Office licenses by moving to MetaFrame. Microsoft is really funny about the way they license software for MetaFrame servers, and they basically require a license for every client that could possibly connect...even if it's impossible (due to lack of MetaFrame licenses) for them all to connect at once. So legally, you'd still need the same number of Office licenses as you have now, not to mention the licenses for Windows 2000 (or NT or XP) server, MetaFrame, and all the stupid Windows 2000 Terminal Server Client Access licenses...the last of which again requires a license for every possible client. If we didn't have a site license for Windows 2000 and Office here, I'd probably give up!
2) The "specialized" apps may not work too well on MetaFrame. If the apps are not written correctly, they do not work well when installed on a Terminal (MetaFrame) Server due to the shared nature of the system...basically, files/settings are placed in non-shareable locations, and things are hosed. This isn't to say your apps won't work, but there's a definate chance. Take, for instance, some of the tools included with Office 2000...the Microsoft Photo Editor won't even install onto Windows 2000 Terminal Server because it doesn't work right. You'd think Microsoft at least could write products that would work! (Actually, the core Office tools do work, but some of the utilties, like Photo Editor, don't).
Just want you to be aware of some of the gotchas... I've spent enough time suffering through them myself trying to figure out what was wrong to know it's a pain sometimes!
I work at a company doing IC design, and basically all of our tools use this model. Some sample tools/companies: HSpice (Avant!), Powermill (Synopsys), Calibre (Mentor Graphics), VSS (Synopsys), HSim (Nassda), Virtuoso (Cadence), etc, etc. Everyone uses this scheme. Most of our software has to be renewed every year (and for a much larger fee than MS charges for Windows/Office/etc, I might add).
For the average medium-to-large business, this really is not a big deal. Where this change might be more of a problem is the smaller, mom and pop businesses, who can barely afford the software once. But after three years, it's really time to upgrade anyway.
Anyway, the point is look beyond the PC market and you'll see that this concept has been in use for many years. PC users are just used to getting things cheap. Not that MS products are cheap (in fact, I'd say they're disgustingly overpriced), but in the business world, subscriptions aren't a big deal.
But let's look at the commercial UNIX market. We have about 100 HP-UX systems, and we've been paying HP a ton of money (I don't even know the sum...but it's many tens of thousands of dollars) every year for their premium support, which is supposed to guarantee 4 hour on-site response. Their hardware support has been absolutely horrible. I haven't seen 4 hour response in about a year, and we're lucky to see next day response. Even with systems down, we sometimes don't see a tech on-site for a day or two, and half the time they've never even seen that type of system, bring the wrong parts, or screw things up worse. One of them managed to hose half the OS in the process of installing a new motherboard, because he didn't know how to check the LAN ID and nuked half the networking settings. We've had to kick a couple of the people out of the building because they were just making things worse.
I can understand that sometimes parts aren't available. But untrained staff is really dangerous, especially when you're talking about nice, expensive, multiuser UNIX systems. It's pretty frustrating to have a $40 or $50,000 system, which is supposed to be serving a number of users and batch jobs, down for 4 days because the techs don't know what they're doing.
The companies really need to make sure to train their people as to what is good customer service, is the bottom line. Some of our HP techs will call us, leave a voicemail, and that's it. We all have our pager numbers on our voicemail, but they don't bother to page us. So of course by the time we get the message, they've gone home for the day.
One of our software vendors is equally frustrating. One of their tools was crashing back the UNIX prompt several times a day for about 90% of our users. It took us about 3 different tech support people to even find somebody that understood the tool well enough to understand that it shouldn't crash during zooms or pans. Then, it took us about 3 more calls to convince them that this is not acceptable behavior. "well, just restart it when it crashes". Excuse me? I really shouldn't have to waste time convincing someone that crashing is bad... Oh, and we pay these guys a ton of money for support every year too.
It's not like we're idiots over here, either. We call support for two reasons... 1) we have hardware down (hardware failures) and 2) we find a bug. I would say only about 5% of our calls turn out to be something we're doing wrong. It's not like we're asking how to use the mouse or anything... It's not like we're using bad vendors either...HP, for example, is generally considered to be a really good company.
We've taken our complaints all the way up to the directors and VPs of several companies, and we pretty much get ignored. It's funny though how after we decided not to pay for 4 hour support anymore and switch to next day, suddenly they're interested in our problems.
Seems to me that support can be (and often is) just as crappy if you pay a ton as if you didn't pay at all. Half the time I have better luck resolving problems on the web than through the support we pay for.
(End of rant)