Excuse my lack of knowledge but I never considered ordering a workstation of whatever kind from a reseller - but many do and I would love to know the benefits of that vs ordering - in case of flame a Z8 direct from HP and putting in the special stuff (storage and AJA/BM).
I would assume you get SLA/warranty for the whole build and can lease/finance them as a single entity? So its a single point of contact.
I kinda get it for bigger deployments but lets say a single Z8? wether I have to deal with AJA for a rma or HP shouldnt matter much or what am I missing, the markups seem pretty high for just that.
For me, manufacturers know their equipment, but they don’t know our business. Dozens of times I’ve been up late at night pricing out gear at Dell or HP or Lenovo. And they are doing they same nonsense on their website that we trash apple for…ridiculous RAM prices, ridiculous storage prices, and gpu pricing from 2 years ago. I call them up, get someone offshore who claims to be my account manager, and tries to swing me a deal. I dunno. It just doesn’t sit right with me. Resellers give you longevity and long term relationships. When I call Cinesys, its cuz its Steve…and Harry…and Yannick…and they’ve spent decades supporting people like me. The markup is there. They are a business. And for me, its worth it to pay them and have them fill in all the gaps so I don’t get taken for a ride by a manufacturer rep who’s trying to hit a quota.
So, that doesn’t answer all of your questions, but, I’m a reseller fan.
A good reseller can definitely help you find financing for whatever gear you need. But the gear we use has a very short lifespan and needs to work hard throughout that short life. So a reseller has a real interest in your survival. And your growth. They take the time to listen to your needs, steer you clear of excessive or unnecessary gear, put it together, test it, certify and it and support it through it’s lifetime…
If you don’t work at a large shop with a staff Flame engineer or engineering team, then a great reseller like Steve Strong at Cinesys can give you a head start by getting you going and being there if things go sideways. They have systems and parts on standby if you’re in a jam.
I just source directly off Ebay. Always worked out fine, and usually 2-4x cheaper than going thru a vendor. Also, I would go with BMD cards over AJA. Not only are they ways cheaper, but EVERY AJA card we’ve ever had, the fan goes bad and requires RMA from AJA. ADSK is super lame though, and not supporting 12g SDI on BMD. I know you are not in the USA, but VRLA Tech here has great prices if you want to go with something more official than Ebay.
Or try to get a lease to own deal from a reseller.
These machines depreciate faster than cars, and if your Volvo breaks half a mile from the lot, there’s likely another Volvo in a yard somewhere.
Your super exotic build to order workstation is rarer than frog hair.
When it fails, your game is over for a few days or weeks.
In the old days the workstations were more expensive than houses but if anything went wrong there would be some panicked individual on your doorstep with a replacement, usually same day.
That kind of service is dead and buried for most of us.
really interesting posts here, I get both sides totally but I am more of a DIY person, the offers I got from resellers on flame machines where all so ridicolous.
I ended up buying a used Z840 last time and just speccing it up myself
Well there you go. See, I thought I was a DIY person, and I just don’t have the recent experience of building computers to be able to be that kinda person. I want to be that person, maybe some day I will, so decided an off the shelf solution was right for me to start out with. @ALan is a tinkerer. Have you seen all his videos? That’s his jam. And he’s brilliant. If you enjoy/need to spend time figuring that stuff out and hunting for deals, then rad, eBay is the way to go. But if you’ve got money to spend and just need something to show up and it works and if it breaks you send a nasty email, then, you pay for that privilege and comfort. That’s kinda more my style at the moment. One day I’ll have the space to get into that nitty gritty and the expertise and inventory to support myself. In the meantime, I’ll spend resources elsewhere.