[SunRescue] New Sun midrange servers...

[Brian McCloskey]

>5) The high-end machines are built on-site, at a non-trivial expense (they 
>don't ship in *really* big boxes, instead a few hundred boxes. (I once 
>watched a mainframe being built, it took several men several 12-14 hour 
>days to complete it, and when they were done, it was then ready to be 
>powered-up for the SEs to test on before cutting over for the client)

actually the e10k does ship in pretty much one big box. the ssp(s) and other 
parts ship separately, but the cabinet comes in one crate with the system 
boards already installed. i believe though, that ibm is still the only 
company with the facilities able to fabricate the centerplanes among other 
parts for these and that can't be cheap paying them to build these 
components. certainly not as cheap as all of the illegal sweatshop labor sun 
got caught up in a couple of years ago. ;p bottom line is these things 
aren't cheap to design, build or sell even if cray did most of the design.

-wu
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com