Greetings
Dear fellow seqers
I was considering a used HiSeq2500 V3 purchase. One of my requirements was that it be upgradeable to V4. I checked online and found instruments with serial above D00101 were upgradeable.
I wanted to confirm with our local Illumina field service engineer (who is a fantastic engineer by the way). He put me through to Illumina sales and here is the response I got:
Hi ----
I was speaking with ---- earlier regarding this potential purchase and I asked him to forward your email so that I could reply. Unfortunately, Illumina no longer services instruments purchased through third parties and the license and rights of use are non-transferrable. I think this was implemented several months ago. I apologize for the inconvenience and sorry for being the bearer of bad news, but I wanted to make sure you were aware of this before you moved forward with the purchase so you could take all the variables into consideration.
I'd be happy to forward this to management if you would like more details on this policy or would like to discuss this further.
Sincerely,
----
What kind of service do you think is being referred to here? Just upgrades? Maybe repairs as well? Am I not even allowed to legally use a third-party purchased machine? Is this only for machines purchased after this so-called new policy? I couldn't find any kind of press release regarding this seemingly major shift, maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.
Does this come as a shock to anyone? How do you feel about this?
Looking forward to the community's take.
I think for reliable info you'd need to contact the company itself.
I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Illumina is the one who sent that email to me after I contacted their field engineer. They are the ones suggesting they will not service Instruments purchased from third parties.
They also offer to take the email further, to management, for further details. That might be worth doing to answer the questions you laid out.
No I haven't asked. Frankly I don't know whether I should ask. If we already had a preowned MiSeq it would seem very strange that they have been servicing that unit and providing reagents for that unit for the past year despite knowing how we acquired it, IF we acquired it. To my thinking it seems that Illumina might say anything to discourage the purchase of a pre-owned machine but once you already have it why would they turn down that lucrative revenue stream.
Indeed, it seems a bit weird for them to not want to take your money, though if they think they might be able to get more "new unit" sales this way then I suppose a business case could be made.
Depends on the department of the sales rep. His or her performance isn't based on Illumina as a whole, but just the sales they are responsible for. I would seek clarification on all these points from Illumina themselves.
Cross post at SeqAnswers: http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64921