This is a tough question. There's an old UNIX saying:
We sell rope. If you hang yourself, it's your own fault.I think that part of what distinguishes appliance vendors is that we don't like to sell rope. For instance, we've got no way to disable RAID in our system, and we always include NV-RAM.
On the other hand, as our customers become more and sophisticated familiar with our products, perhaps it does make sense to be more flexible.
I doubt that customers will ever become sophisticated. As long as coporate penny pinchers sign the purchase orders, they'll take the low road and expect us to miraculously save the day when something goes south. I think think it's a plus that NetApp sets margins of acceptible performance and sticks to them.
++-------------------------------------------------------------------- Christoph Doerbeck Motorola ISG doerbeck@dma.isg.mot.com