Chad Sakac recently tweeted about some issues EMC were having with VMware and there was a predictable and rather pathetic dig from NetApp about perhaps this being a result of EMC having too many product lines and having too much to QC.

Stephen has a post here about pricing, about getting close to your vendor and developing a relationship with just a few trusted partners. Nice idea but in any relationship there needs to be some tension to keep it fresh and alive; otherwise you find yourselves doing something because you have always done so, it becomes comfortable.

The third rail of enterprise IT is the shockingly opaque and flexible pricing schemes applied to hardware, software, and services. How much does a high-end switch or storage array cost? Are you getting ripped off on your maintenance contracts? Which bundled software modules are required and which are pure profit? You’ll get no help in answering these questions from mainstream sources like technical media, trade shows, or corporate blogs.