a scrap contract for old equipment from the manufacturer is the most ridiculous thing I have heard. If there is none on the second hand market, that means that news of the instrument won't spread. Hobbyists are one vector, but even medium large companies (and beyond) sometimes get gear off ebay, because budget for all departments is not 'flagship'. They have flag ships, and also third world. This is NOT any kind of mystery, conspiracy, infact its really common knowledge to anyone with any experience in management and acquisitions.
It's easy to start thinking that equipment like that is a scam for the high end user lol. Like big dumb companies.
Only a bloody fool is not certain that the 'end of year budget spending by any means necessary' thing does not exist in companies that leads to the development of some SERIOUSLY lazy hardware. Some of it is good and game changer, but its littered with systems that are just there to essentially keep a lie going. It's hard to figure out which is which unless a broad variety of people use the equipment and then share their thoughts (not just in the carbon copy F500 'circle' that you KNOW is full of the usual bull shit).
A small company with a budget often IGNORES the higher end stuff just because they know that quite a bit of it is basically a waste of money, and no one is there to help them navigate the mine field, through all the lies in the specifications and whatnot.
Usually the best equipment is good and convenient, but competent test engineers kind of laugh at the price, especially for a 'analyzer' system made of different blocks, that someone is paying ALOT to avoid one or two interconnects and a few spread sheet columns. But that is something you learn really quickly.
I have a feeling the manager was gonna pick em up in his car at night
. Or the biggest ivy league dick heads EVER made that contract. Usually they specify dubious tax reasons.
And even for the biggest companies it is worth it for them to have others use the same equipment on a small scale (they usually have ALOT of it doing ALOT of parallel work to generate money), to make sure they are not being conned. True for everything but the highest end process equipment (and even that usually has so many configurations that its not that much of a risk to have the competition have it, unless its like some super specific hot button thing like the near / sub nm lithography gear). But that shit is usually a room full of equipment, not a box. YOu think they have confidence in their equipment when all the deals are occuring behind NDA closed doors secret squirel shit? The amount of relief you can hear that someone else gets by using the same gear can be massive, if your ego is not the size of nebraska).
And for the tactical, non strategic prospective, having the same gear littered around even the poor places *adjusts turtle neck* means that you have cheap, possibly more advanced (because smaller firm = does more with less) people that have LOWER salaries. It means there is closer to a actual normal hiring market, you can get cheaper trained employees that are ready to go into your more focused/specialized teams, that get a pay raise that the company paying does not see as ridiculous. Otherwise you have a VERY small circle of people to poach trained employees on, for time sensitive corporate operational plans achievement. This means the salaries are LUDICROUS, un fair to the general population (elitistm and the hiring practices are SHADY (legally).