I am going to drop a bunch of money on a poweredge 1850. I was wondering if there are any magic special codes or ways to get stuff from dell for cheaper?

Are you willing to buy refurbished?

I might, but some others wouldn't, so I guess the answer is no.

Google for "Dell Coupon" to see if there are any specials.  For a Poweredge, probably not, but it won't hurt to look.

I can't find any for that power edge, but, in the future, the best resource I've found for this sort of thing is http://www.techbargains.com

Dell offers tons of coupons for consumer products. I have not heard about any such coupons for server products. I remember that Joel mentioned in his article that if you are ordering couple of servers, it's better to call Dell Sales#. The rep has ability to give you a good discount.

Doesn't Dell have these "buy in the next ten minutes and get an obscene discount" Web sales?

www.cheapstingybastard.com

But first, do you need a huge poweredge? Can you get a recycled server to do the job?

Philo

I was browsing for a notebook today at the Dell Outlet and noticed that after adding the product to the checkout there was an additional product config page that allowed me to by 'extras'.  On of these extras was a 'Buy Now' discount voucher worth £100.  I was surprised to say the least and it is something one could easily miss and pay an extra £100 just because one hadn't looked at the list (it was tucked in beside the 'Software & Peripherals').  I woner how many people buy the laptop and don't click the voucher check box....

I'd make sure you checked the extras checklist for such items.

Business products - Latitude notebooks, Optiplex desktops - you can get an additional 5% off from a sales rep.  (5% off their best web price)  We don't buy servers from Dell, but I assume it's similar.

> But first, do you need a huge poweredge?

It will reside far away in a colo and I think everyone would feel more comfortable with a proven machine that has builtin remote hardware monitoring and management.

Plus the plan is to quickly move to 2850s so having them all in the same family seems a good idea from a management and spare parts perspective.

For some server we would use in an office I would agree with you.