Trying to buy from VMWare direct is like trying to get blood out of a stone.

[PotNoodleTech]

All I want to do is buy a copy of vSphere Essentials Kit for 3 hosts. (apparently you cant buy this through resellers, only VMware Directly).

 

You'd think it's be easy, right?

 

Well - nowhere near as easy as it could be, they've got a kind person called Jess in sales who can help you out, but they can't actually take a purchase order via email, you have to go on the website and do an order with nowhere to reference your purchase order number, then as I can't pay by card, get a bank transfer done, with no official invoice or anything, and you don't get educational discount ordering through the web store.

 

For a school like mine which has draconian financial methods (no credit cards etc) this is one big pain, and it need not be so!

 

Jess is getting back to me and we'll get all sorted soon hopefuly.

 

Note for VMware. If you’re not going to allow your educational resellers to sell a product to education with discount, please offer it to education yourselves with the relevant discount. The ordering process is easy - all that needs to happen is you give me a quote, I email you a purchase order, you send the product and an invoice me with my PO number, I pay. Job done and everyone is happy! It seems to work for almost every other company in the world!!

 

Edited March 11, 2014 by PotNoodleTech

[FishCustard]

I'm pretty sure we bought our Essentials+ Kit from Pugh Computers - worth asking them about it perhaps?

[PotNoodleTech]

Yeh essentials plus you can buy from anywhere, I need just Essentials.

[bodminman]

VMware vSphere 5 Essentials Plus Kit | VMware | Products | - discounted software for education establishments

[pantscat]

I'm intrigued... why Essentials rather than Essentials Plus? HA and vMotion are definitely worth having.

[Oaktech]

We go through Blue Chip Blue Chip who are a) responsive and b) willing to go the extra mile with VMWare to bring the costs down.

[PotNoodleTech]

Reason for only needing essentials is I just want to be able to use the latest version of Veeam. HA and Vmotion are nice but that may as well wait until the big server refresh in 2015.

[pantscat]

I seem to remember in the darkest depths when I first bought VMware licences the different between Essentials and Essentials Plus was only about £300... well worth the extra. vMotion is a god-send when patching/updating hosts.