Completely OT - sorry mods - but along the same lines, if you "buy" a mainframe and don't keep to the license, you absolutely agree to having a mainframe shaped hole cut in your building when they extract it and pay for any repairs yourself, as well as paying for the cost of them making the hole in the first place![]()
That depends. I used to work for 'a very VERY large bank', and the hardware provider delivered anything within 24 hours, with no fee up front. They even subsidised the cost of the software redevelopment to move onto their hardware.
So it's all a matter of scale. In context, I was on the phone to the man in Palo Alto CA, who wrote the appropriate part of the compiler and operating system when I hit a problem, within 20 minutes of my call. He was brilliant and a really decent chap.
I also have a similar tale about a very major soup manufacturer. Yeah, sounds odd. But it's true.
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