The true cost of “cheap"

Much has been said about the cheap cost of products supplied by companies from China. Well, first off, we don’t really know how some of those companies can provide cheap products AND apparently turn a profit as they are not publicly held so we can’t take a look inside of their finances.

But even leaving that to one side, let’s look at the total cost of ownership of networking gear. As I have it, 25% is the cost of the gear itself, 25% is physical space and amenities (air conditioning and so on) and a full-on 50% is service. Now that’s in the best of scenarios. But if you gotta up your services by another 20% because you have reliability issues, compatibility issues or the #$%@! red-blinking “danger” light won’t go off and you can’t figure out why, that 10-15% you saved on the sticker price isn’t looking like such a hot deal after all.