Ken, although I sort of agree, how about this story some 15-20 years ago, RW decided to limit their supply companies indeed here in the UK they did a real job of that, they even bought out a leading repair company who specialise in AB hardware, then the prices rocketed, I sent a PV550 away for repair which we had done many times before, the price was above a new one from one of their depleted distributors (allowing for our discount). We also purchased over £60,000 worth of software from them & the one & only time I had a query they said it will take 4 days unless you have a tech connect contract. From that point on we decided to drop AB/RW big time, instead moving to Mitsubishi or Siemens, Our local RW rep called in and actually helped me find the problem we had, he was also disgusted at their strong arm tactics & was moving on as he said he could not work for a company like that. Over the next 15-20 years we replaced all but a couple of AB systems with Mitsubishi, Siemens & Beijers, The total loss of trade to RW must have been in the region of over £1m and that was for what would be a small company. I have heard similar rants from some acquaintances whom I got to know over a 20 year period working for a systems house. I have heard all about experienced integrators, there were a number of companies that were approved systems for Siemens & Rockwell, I worked with a number of them, some were good, some were awful and have no idea why two main stream PLC manufacturers would even consider them professional.