I'm just reading what was written, especially "the specific components we needed", and assuming they're not as incompetent as is being suggested, given they've served me well. Perhaps you haven't been tendering for server hardware recently, even bog-standard stuff, and seen the responses that even say they can't quote a fixed price currently. At least, that's in my part of the world, in an operation buying a good deal of hardware. We also have systems over ten years old running.