Can anyone confirm the truth about this whole vendor lock out thing???
Because we have tons of EQ's so when a warranty runs out we can still get firmwares and stuff. And although we use all the old ones for stuff that is mostly testing, i will be very pissed if i updated the firmware and my EQ goes down. I know companies can tend to be sneaky about that kinda stuff but i doubt they'd do something like that.
It is not them being sneaky at all. If you have a valid warranty or support contract on your particular equipment, you will have access to service, firmware and other software. If you allow your support subscription to lapse you will not. The standard position from EQL and Dell is that they only support vendor supplied drives. If a particular firmware doesn't lock you in, that is no guarantee that the next one won't. If you don't like that, buy from another vendor that doesn't lock you.