>IBM, Sun and HP have their fairly pricey Opteron systems.
>The IT people are not swell about unsupported purchases off ebay.
Mischa,
I certainly understand your concern, but the price and support
sometimes go hand-in-hand. You may have to pick your batttles if your
want more bang for the buck or more support. I might be wrong on this,
but not everything you buy on E-Bay is unsupported.
We purchase a dual Operton from Sun off their E-Bay store for about $3K
less than the "buy it now" price.
From an IT perspective, support is not as critical if I can do it
myself. If it is for business 24/7 operations, then the company should
be able to put some money behind what they want to put their business
on. Your mileage may vary.
Steve