Greg Winner, CIO of real estate firm Hamilton Partners in Chicago,called his Cisco sales rep to inquire about license transfers andsupport on a large volume of Catalyst 5500 switches and VXR 7200routers from companies that had filed Chapter 11. He was going to usethem to offer high-speed access to Hamilton Partners tenants. Thesales rep told Winner that before Cisco would agree to support thegear, it would have to inspect it. That would cost as much as $6,000for each piece of used equipment. Furthermore, Winner would have tobuy new software licenses for as much as $3,150 per year perunit.

"This is like GM asking for a royalty when I buy a used car," Winnersays.