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Pick Up A Piece of Enron 201

Posted by timothy from the not-that-kind-of-piece dept.
shintaro points out this massive collection of "gear from Enron on auction. Amongst the more than 3,000 in this auction (1 of 10) are state and federal law books, and numerous notebooks sans hard drives. Might be a good opportunity to pick up a Sun Enterprise Server? Office furniture is also on offer, Herman Miller and Knolls all over, not an IKEA item in sight. Interesting what Enron employees and shareholders must feel looking at this loot."
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Pick Up A Piece of Enron More

Pick Up A Piece of Enron

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  • What? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (reggoh.gip)> on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:04PM (#9731583) Journal
    No paper shredders????
  • So... if I buy enron equipment and find more damaging files on the computer, can I auction that back and make some $$$?

    • Good luck doing that without the hard drives!
      • not all evidence is on computers... there was probably lots of stuff on *paper*, and i would like to beleive that they've checked all those desk drawers...

        eric
      • What do you mean? E.g., the description clearly states that this [dovebid.com] Sun mass storage cabinet comes with 28 HDDs. Even if you don't find any data, you can still use it to store your, umm, home videos. In any case not a bad deal for $200.

        OTOH, you probably need the Sun Enterprise 10000 [dovebid.com] to hook it up, so that's another $200.

        • Re:Enron Equipment (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Doctor_D ( 6980 )
          I've seen far better descriptions of products on ebay than this site. Looking at this storage rack, the only picture of it is the rack with thr front door closed. So you have no idea what type of disk arrays are inside. Given the age of the 10k's listed nearby I would have to assume these are at best D1000's or going as far back as SPARCstorage arrays. Also given the age the HHD sizes are most likely 9gigs or smaller, so not much space to store your videos, but you could set up a nice RAID array. Since
        • Having been to quite a few high profile .bomb auctions, I can tell you most of this stuff goes for a lot more then its worth. $200 is just the minimum bid. People will be crawling all over the place in person on auction day, and the competition gets hot.


          Not only do most people not seem to have any clue that you can get this stuff much cheaper on ebay, but they are willing to pay extra to say they got it from Enron.

  • Ha. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:05PM (#9731590)
    I'm waiting for the Martha Stewart Living auction. Mmmm, cheap pots and pans and bedspreads!

  • My favorite auction item. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:05PM (#9731591)

    Amongst the more than 3,000 in this auction (1 of 10) are state and federal law books

    ...still in their shrink wrap.

    Ba dump bump! Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

    • Re:My favorite auction item. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If the legislature doesn't have to read them, why should we?

    • Re:My favorite auction item. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WoodstockJeff ( 568111 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @02:50PM (#9732183) Homepage
      still in shrink wrap

      Ah, but you forget that people like this live by knowing the limits of the law, and exploring their edges. You can't play the game without knowing the rules!

      At least some of those law books are probably well worn. Companies like this spend lots of time exploring what has and hasn't been explicitely been ruled to be illegal, and trying variations on what has been to get around whatever was perceived to be the downfall of the now-illegal ploy.

  • Having purchased at auction a large amount of items from one of my former employers (Sunpoint Securities, Inc - One of the largest brokerage failuers in US History) if you are careful you can make a decent profit on auctions like this.

  • $200 minimum bid? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by djcapelis ( 587616 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:13PM (#9731631) Homepage
    Some of that equipement is outdated and not worth the minimum bid... I'll go back to pricewatch and ebay...

    • Re:$200 minimum bid? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Hits_B ( 711969 )
      I have 25 shares of Enron I'll sell for $50. You can't beat a price like that!!
      • I have 25 shares of Enron I'll sell for $50.
        Would that entitle me to a cut of the cash they're raising with this auction? Any money should go to shareholders, right?
        • There is a very long waiting list, and common stock holders will be the last to see any money. Besides, there isn't a coin small enough to be paid to you for those 25 shares.
    • Some of that equipement is outdated and not worth the minimum bid... I'll go back to pricewatch and ebay...

      While not looking too closely at this particular auction, if you choose well at an general auction, you can make money re-selling those items on ebay. I know, I have done it. It is particularly the case with auctions that occur during business hours - if you have a flexible employer (like mine), you can attend these auctions occasionally and pickup some old but still functional gear that can be resol

  • YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Staos ( 700036 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:18PM (#9731652) Journal
    Why is this under YRO?

    • Re:YRO? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:23PM (#9731671)
      Because... uh... Enron... Bush... Ashcroft taking your rights online away!!!!!!

  • Ethics Handbook (Score:3, Funny)

    by ltsmash ( 569641 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:25PM (#9731681)
    I wonder if they'd have the ethics training handbook available. I'd definitely buy that.

  • Let it be known (Score:3, Funny)

    by krray ( 605395 ) * on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:26PM (#9731685)
    Let it be known that we'll no longer "/." a server upon a story. Based on how slloooowwwww their servers are now operating we've "Enron'd" the Enron Auction.

    Nah, /. is quick and geekie...
    • I'd say. They really should have enlisted some of those suns to serve the site, and/or bought some more bandwadth. I think it melted down in the middle of the 4th page for me, after about 3 minutes waiting for page 4 to load, I gave up and came back here.

      Setting up a web auction without the iron to handle it should be criminal since the web viewers are going to be at such a lengthy time disadvantage.

      I was looking for a decent tape system myself, but there's no way in hell I'll be able to find it before

  • Great Looking Sun Ultra Enterprise 6000.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:29PM (#9731696)
    esp. with the faux wood grain veneer finish - ahh, they don't make em' like they used to...

    http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=w eb2165924 [dovebid.com]

  • Still waiting. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:30PM (#9731704)
    I'm still waiting for SCO to go down, so I get get me a load of cheap Linux licences.
  • Amongst the more than 3,000 in this auction (1 of 10) are state and federal law books

    Yeah, they couldn't get approval to spend money on toilet rolls, so they used pages from the law books instead.

  • Company Auctions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jchawk ( 127686 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:41PM (#9731755) Homepage Journal
    These company auctions rarely offer discount prices on anything... People get caught up in the moment and end up paying crazy prices for hardware. Often times you actually do better by buying newer hardware, then picking up things from these auctions.

    There are exceptions... If you don't mind picking up a couple of hundred computers you can get a reasonable price per unit, but most on slashdot are probably not looking for that, nor could they afford it...

    Just my 2 cents.

    • Re:Company Auctions (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zak3056 ( 69287 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @02:18PM (#9731990) Journal
      These company auctions rarely offer discount prices on anything... People get caught up in the moment and end up paying crazy prices for hardware. Often times you actually do better by buying newer hardware, then picking up things from these auction

      No joke--another thing to consider is that any hardware you pick up is going to be at least three and a half years old (Enron died 12/2000.)

      Something I noticed in the listings is that everything seems to have a minimum bid of $200, no matter what it is. Compaq server rack? $200. Compaq server rack with builtin 15" LCD, keyboard, trackball, and KVM? $200.

      Like you noted, anyone who finds a good deal is someone willing to buy by the pallet at fifty to seventy cents on the dollar. If you're a surplus dealer who can move that kind of volume, more power to you. Else, best advice is stay away.

      • How is this any different than an auction on eBay? Plenty of auctions there have reserves to ensure a reasonable bid is made. If not, then just put tags on it out on the street and have a yard sale.
        • How is this any different than an auction on eBay? Plenty of auctions there have reserves to ensure a reasonable bid is made. If not, then just put tags on it out on the street and have a yard sale.

          Hey, I'm not decrying the practice--it seems some sucker always comes along and pays way more than something is worth. Given that the job of the auctioneer is to recoup as much as possible for the creditors, I'd say that's a good thing.

          My comment was mostly directed at anyone planning to bid, not the sellers.
    • I can second that. I recently did a project for a local publisher who really really wanted his journals online on his own machine. Besides the fact that he's hooked up on a 256Kb upstream sDSL line (for transfering 5MB pdfs), he spend 10.000euro on a Sun Enterprise 450. Not a bad machine (quad processor, 4GBRam, a half a TB SCSI diskspace, lots of redundancy). But he had better bought a dual Xeon for half that price, and upgraded the sDSL to 512. Or even better : swallow his pride and go colocation.

      Some p

    • Re:Company Auctions (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @07:08PM (#9733941) Homepage
      to a point.

      Local company bankrupcy auctions can be a goldmine, espically if your area has less-than-savvy companies and citizens.

      A Local Machine shop went belly-up after they over expanded from the dot-bomb boom. they dies about 2 years ago and a year after they had an auction.

      Things like compressors were going for nuts prices, espically the executive laptops and office pc's.

      I picked up a toshiba toughbook for $10.00 and was the only bidder as nobody bidding knew what it was including the auctioner. "A briefcast test instrument object." I also picked up two SGI "fuel" CAD stations with 21 inch monitors and input tablets. They were auctioned as "special computers that dont run windows"

      I got them for $100.00 each. One was still in the boxes.

      if it's normal stuff, then the idiots will be bidding like crazy, if it's slightly wierd, it can be had for absolute dirt.

      and yes, I love my P-III 800 toughbook.
    • I disagree. Well, I don't know about this particular type of auction (i.e. online), I've only been to real-live ones, most of them for failed dot-coms.

      It's really a question of the crowd. The dot-com ones I've been to had a large number of used-computer dealers in the crowd, and so it was natural for the prices to end up at just below what you'd pay at an ordinary used shop.

      Usually you could get a reasonable deal on hardware, but nothing spectacular, basically the same you would've gotten in a used shop w

  • Server slow as hell (Score:3, Funny)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @01:49PM (#9731803)
    Why is their server so slow, this happened the last time there was an Enron auction, who wants to wait 5 minutes for a search?

  • Skip right to page (Score:5, Informative)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @02:01PM (#9731881)
    11 - VCR/TV
    13 - plasma displays (mostly with screen burn :/)
    15 - projectors, cameras, UPS
    16 - huge boxes full of keyboards, modems and other cards, CAT5,
    17/18 - Compaq deskotps, in groups of 20
    18 - Sat. phone, '96 Chevy truck
    19 - Pallets of plastic TRASH RECEPTACLES, sate and federal law books
    20 - IBM and Compaq PII and PIII laptops (NO HDD!)
    21 - IBM 600 and T21 laptops
    >22 - couches and other boring stuff
    25/27 - SUN and IBM servers
    27/28 - Compaq servers

    uhh sorry don't have time to go through all of this, maybe someone could continue. just one more random page: 50, Lucent digital phones, SUN servers and Cisco switches

  • Sick amount of storage (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Aaden42 ( 198257 )
    I couldn't resist... I did the math. Of the Compaq and Sun drive arrays that have their disk sizes/model numbers listed, there's 11.8 TERRABYTES of drive on auction!

    In other news, of about 40 plasma TV's on auction, 33 of them are suffering from phosphor burn, and the rest are 'untestable.' Guess that settles my decision on whether to go w/ plasma or LCD....
  • This is insane. Everything has a $200 minimum bid. A good portion of the items here are not worth $200. What are they going to do with that stuff when it doesn't sell?

    • Re:$200 minimum bid for everything (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @02:47PM (#9732158)
      What they do is keep it around, and you can call in after the auction to buy bunches of unsold items at a price.

      For best results, do the webcast or go in person. There are massive deals to be had. At one auction I attended, a loaded Sun E450 (quad proc, 1gb ram, lots o disk) went for $900 + buyers premium of around 16%.

      The downside to having many lots is the auctioneer will sometimes collapse identical lots into one to save time. If you've got the cash, it's a great way to get great deals. You can also propose lots, like "I'll take the next 10 sun boxes for $8000 total."

      Auctions are a real trip, but you have to know how much stuff is worth, definitely. I've seen things go for above-retail prices, so be warned.
      • More flexible, but no more dangerous than ebay. My roommate in college made his money reselling Dell PCs. He'd buy them direct from dell when they had a sale and suckers would still pay more than non-sale retail prices a lot of the time. If it's at an auction, it *must* be cheaper!

        Human stupidity knows no bounds...
    • From here [dovebid.com]...

      "DoveBid shall charge and collect from each successful bidder a 13% buyer's premium for each sale at the auction, in addition to the purchase price as bid. Purchasers who pay in the form of cash, cashier's check, company check (with a letter of guarantee) or wire transfer, shall receive a discount from the buyer's premium equal to 3% of the purchase price. In addition, Auctioneer reserves the right to charge a nonrefundable $25 registration fee for its own account to purchasers who bid over
  • Hmm, is a lawbook a special Apple MAC for lawyers?

  • My Favorite (Score:4, Funny)

    by Cavio ( 217880 ) <cavio@hotmail.com> on Sunday July 18, 2004 @02:35PM (#9732087) Homepage
    My favorite personal piece of Enron memorabilia is a yellow rubber ducky they mailed me when they were selling bandwidth.

    Just the goofyness of it. It is so dotCom. Completely unrelated to networking, but here sits this happy little duck with an Enron logo plastered across it's chest and the slogon "GetCapacity" in it's URL.

    I use it to talk to when I'm in my office alone and face a moral dilema. Whatever the duck says, I do the opposite.
    • Bid on the car?

      Because it's your auction? Or you can't retract and you want someone to override yours so you're out of hot water?

      Inquiring minds want to know.
  • ASP 500 Error

    An error occurred processing the page you requested.
    Please see the details below for more information.

    COM Error Number: -2146827864 (0x800A01A8)

    File Name: /lang/LR/en/includes/Internationalization.inc

    Line Number: 74

    Brief Description: Object required: 'Application(...)'
    • I'd be more inclined to think it's a threading error where someone crammed an ADO object into the Application() collection/object. We'd need to see the code to be certain, but that'd be my first guess.
      My other guess is the performance of the site is very, very slow, /. or not. It doesn't take long to bog a system like that down.
  • Consolidated Office Distributors [siliconvalley.com] is where Silicon Valley companies go to die. That's where we buy office furniture. Their building looks like the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark, a dimly lit cave of racks and piled furniture covering a city block. Prices are very good, and very negotiable if you buy in bulk.

    Ross-Dove, the auction house, seems to run high on price. I've been to one of their auctions, and everything sold above blue book.

  • Bargains (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Jodka ( 520060 )
    "Amongst the more than 3,000 in this auction (1 of 10) are state and federal law books"

    Unopened, in original packaging?

  • Holy crap.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by DiscoOnTheSide ( 544139 ) <ajfili&eden,rutgers,edu> on Sunday July 18, 2004 @03:14PM (#9732370) Homepage
    Unless my brain is still scrambled from waking up... each one of those Compaq storage servers has a total of 666GB of storage... either someone over there has a sense of humor or we're close to the appocalypse :P
    • I'd be more concerned about the story in the previous 7-10 days about the Mexican(?) official who has an ID/chip in his right arm which cannot be removed and is used for security.

      IIRC, the mark will be the right arm or the forehead.

      tick...tick...tick...tick...
  • Hey! I had no idea Sun made Tables...

    Says here that it's a "Sun Enterprise 6000"

    but the picture is of a table...awsome name for a table if ya ask me!

  • buying enron's assets... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 0WaitState ( 231806 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @03:20PM (#9732430)
    Maybe California can buy its power back?
  • Who would want a server that looks like this. [dovebid.com]

    (They mixed item desctription for item 141, and picture of 1441)

  • From an employee view (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dsingram ( 798059 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @03:28PM (#9732498)
    Interesting what Enron employees and shareholders must feel looking at this loot In a word... Sad. Just like most of you, I went to work everyday and worked my tail off. I worked at Enron for 3 years, right till the end. I can honestly say this, I never again expect to work with a group of people as smart, driven and passionate as I did with the crooked E. That is the saddest part. Some of the best people I have ever worked with are going through the same thing.... very sad.
  • (equivalent to DOD) has just excelled itself by vastly overrunning budget just moving its computers from its old electronic surveillance building to the new one. They have apparently also bought top of range Hermann Miller chairs for everyone claiming this will save them money in time off for backache. And, as we know, they can't equip the soldiers properly for Iraq or find the WMDs.

    If they go the way of Enron , I guess before long someone will be auctioning a used Carnivore or Echelon system, one careful

  • We got the Enron Aerons (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xenoploid ( 798056 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @03:58PM (#9732741)
    I'm a grad student in the Interactive Media Division at USC. In our media lab meeting space we have 6 aerons from enron (it's been rumored they were board room chairs).
  • I've never actually been to one of these, and being in Austin figured I might go, or get someone to go for me.

    Whats the procedure for bidding? Is any of this stuff actually worth bidding on, and do they actually go for decent prices?

    Blake
  • This story is about a year too late! I was there when Dovebid sold all those Enron balls, pens, and even a HUGE sign that used to hang outside their headquarters.

    I didn't buy anything though, because everything was bid up to and obscene amount.
  • Wow...as if much of this stuff wasn't already available through other "dot-bomb" crashes. Like I'm going to bid on it just because it was property of 'enron'...hah...what a sham.
  • With all the religious fervor [the collective] we exhibit over the evils of various corporations (Enron easily among them), I'd be shocked if anyone actually purchased from this auction. Or maybe a cheap Sun server is worth a little hypocrisy?

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