Comment Re:That ship has already sailed. (Score 1) 113
Welcome to the "Web 2.0" world, which is where the volume is these days, and consequently most of the money.
IBM makes 85% of their money from fortune 100. From there it falls off fast. The money and especially the margin is at the top.
If one cannot order it cheaply and easily on the web ala Amazon shopping experience, who is going to bother to go through a reseller? That was the model 40 years ago! Kids today do not bother
What kid gets to pick the hardware infrastructure for his company of any size?
Why would I pay the vendor or the reseller higher prices when I can automate hundreds of thousands of servers on x86, in a lights out management datacenters across the globe, to the point of throwaway systems?
The prices aren't higher and the system outperforms thus lowering total cost. This is the whole "why quality saves money" issue that comes up in every industry.