llumina no longer services instruments purchased through third parties

[alexhaj]

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.

[GenoMax]

Does it also mean that they can potentially refuse to sell you reagents (since the wording above says "license and rights of use are non-transferable")? Did you ask?

[alexhaj]

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.

[pmiguel]

I didn't think there was any hardware required for V4. Either your HiSeq was capable of doing it (camera?) or not.

--
Phillip

[alexhaj]

You still have to do a software upgrade and firmware upgrade for the FPGA at a cost of about $15,000!

[GenoMax]

This would be a big gamble then. They may sell you the reagents but if they refuse to fix a broken machine/provide software updates/supply parts then you would be up the creek.

Perhaps the company that sells you the machine can be made contractually obligated to take the sequencer back if Illumina refuses to service it within a year or some mutually agreeable period of time.

[HESmith]

This would be a big gamble then. They may sell you the reagents but if they refuse to fix a broken machine/provide software updates/supply parts then you would be up the creek.

Perhaps the company that sells you the machine can be made contractually obligated to take the sequencer back if Illumina refuses to service it within a year or some mutually agreeable period of time.

Has anyone ever run a HiSeq for a year without needing service? Ours is pretty robust, according to our FAS, but we still see him every three-four months.

[dannyhi321]

you might be interested in tis thread.. not that its third party - i own the machines from new.. but a picture emerges ...

http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44849&highlight=party

[boothie]

alexhaj - can you send me the full email from Illumina via private message?

[alexhaj]

Hi I don't have it as it was sent to someone in procurement. Turns out though that it's all negotiations. They said if we bought a new NextSeq then they would be willing to support us on a used HiSeq should we ever get one.

although they did stop selling us nextseq reagents until we bought a new machine from them.

[boothie]

Hi alex. Can you DM me more information about them not selling reagents?