Packaging Can Say a Lot

You can tell when a machine is meant for enterprise or SOHO by the input/output you get out the box.

Take for example the SunFire X4500 I configured recently. This thing didn't even do VGA output till you logged into the remote management console via serial or TCP/IP and enabled it. It also doesn't even have an option for a built-in CD-ROM drive, requiring you use USB or the web-based KVMS. I went through the whole installation without a mouse and never thought twice about it.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Dell PowerEdge I just started working on. This thing has a VGA and two USB ports on the front for easy access. Additionally the configuration assistant CD expects the use of a mouse, as it is actually linux + mozilla based.

It makes me think of buying tools at the hardware store. A lot of the good quality tools are fairly unassuming and probably ugly. It's because the engineers were optimizing for performance, not sales, appearance or ease of use. On the other hand, a lot of the lower-quality tools are fairly gaudy with neon colors and fancy foam grips, or they're overly specialized, like a refrigerator-bolt screwdriver. With systems it's the same way. Some systems will try to put everything in front of you and hold your hand, and often in practice they end up being inferior. Other systems give you the tools and let you figure out how to best use them, and these are the systems I prefer. There is a class of both ugly and cheap tools, but please ignore that for the purpose of this discussion; I could have used Windows vs. Linux, but that would have been too easy.