– Ken Barhoover, Interactive Marketing Manager at Park Place Technologies (www.parkplacetechnologies.com), says:
Here at Park Place Technologies, we’ve seen and heard it all. Having worked with over 900 customers, we’ve heard many false perceptions of third party maintenance providers. In fact, these are very common misperceptions that could possibly lead to making the wrong choice for your hardware support. So, here are 4 third party maintenance myths and what you really need to know.
Third party maintenance contracts are so much less expensive than OEM contracts that I must be missing out of some coverage.
OEM’s have a lot of investment in their hardware in terms of research and development, which forces them to recoup this cost with the sale of new hardware. Service contracts limit the life of the hardware with refresh cycles, resulting in additional OEM sales. The fact of the matter is that third party maintenance providers don’t have this upfront investment. Our sole focus is on providing service, so our service pricing can be much lower.
Often, in fact, third party maintenance providers have partnerships with OEM’s, so in reality there will be no sacrifice in terms of parts and service expertise.
If I use a third party maintenance provider I’ll lose my hardware discount from the OEM.
Actually you can expect to see an OEM become even more aggressive with discounting when there’s a service partner inside the account. With our 900 customers, we’ve seen OEM’s become more attentive and provide better discounts.
A third party maintenance provider doesn’t have the same level of expertise as the OEM engineers, so my service won’t be as good.
Many third party maintenance providers – and Park Place Technologies is no exception – has highly qualified engineers, many of whom used to work at OEM’s. You’ll also get the added benefit of an engineer than can work across multiple hardware platforms. If you have OEM contracts in place and an engineer comes out because of a perceived server fix, they won’t be able to do anything if the problem was with your tape backup. With a third party maintenance contract covering all your equipment, your service will likely be better.
Third party maintenance providers cannot provide software support.
Many third party maintenance providers, including Park Place Technologies, offer technical support for all of the OEM operating systems and can access all the available updates, upgrades and firmware made public for these operating systems. Besides, most OEM service contracts split the software from the hardware so you could purchase a software maintenance contract separately.
There’s really no reason not to consider a third party hardware maintenance provider. Significant savings, contract consolidation, and peace of mind all are just a call away. Contact Park Place Technologies today!
