Equipment donations?

[richb at pioneer.ci.net (Rich Braun)]

The BCS has a great opportunity to get into the Open Market beta program
for its latest transaction handling product.

I am proposing that this software be installed to handle membership signups
via VISA/Mastercard on the Web.

The trouble is that this software requires at present a computer running
one of:

  Solaris (Sparc only), SunOS, Digital Unix (AlphaAXP), BSDI,
  HP-UX, or AIX

The BCS doesn't have any hardware capable of running any of these environments,
except for BSDI, and doesn't have the budget for another dedicated server
this year.  (We spent this year's budget on thurien.bcs.org, a Pentium
running Linux.)

If we can identify hardware to support this project, then without having
to haggle we can get a licensed, secure web server free of charge.  Netscape
is offering similar deals, I believe, but regardless of which software we
wind up with, we still need a reasonably high-end Unix box.

The timeframe is tight to get into these betas (after which we'll have to
go to the marketing departments, hat in hand, and I prefer to promote the
BCS as an opportunity for vendor participation, rather than going begging
for goodies.)

Any thoughts on where to get the cash or in-kind contributions to support
this project?  A low-end Alpha server comes in around $6000-9000, probably
discounted for non-profits; second-hand Sparc servers are significantly
cheaper (but you get what you pay for...)  Perhaps one of you here on these
lists knows of an idle server sitting in a backroom lab which could be
donated.

-rich