How to get the best price

... but are you sure price is the most important thing?

We've been on the receiving end of this type of call quite a bit these days. The unfortunate part about the whole deal is that pricing often seems entirely arbitrary. 

When I got the bills for surgery on my ruptured Achilles tendon, I was amazed by the difference between the original price and the final price negotiated by my insurance company. Even though I had a very high deductible and had to pay most of the bill before the insurance kicked in, just having insurance lowered the cost dramatically, in some cases more than 50%. 

As a service provider with payroll, taxes, and overhead, however, I'm less inclined to negotiate. With open source products, we're providing incredible value to our business customers. But if we don't get fairly compensated for our services, we wouldn't be around to help businesses negotiate the open source bazaar for very long...