For Mitchel Davis, his shelfware nightmare came by way of a core switch that would sit dormant until the new CIO revamped his organization's network and dumped one of his first purchases on the job.

Click to see: Mitchell Davis, CIO at Bowdoin College

Davis, who is CIO at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, had just started back in 2003 when he realized Bowdoin needed an upgrade to better secure the network at the edge. Because he had seen similar technology used at previous employers such as Stanford University, and he knew Bowdoin's network "was completely flat and lacked essential security features," Davis says the proposed core switch seemed like a better idea than it actually was.

"I was flying blind, security problems were looming, and the company backed up what I was being told by my staff. I wanted my staff to know that I wasn't one of 'those' kind of CIOs, so I trusted everyone and spent the $150,000," Davis says. "I told my staff that they had better be telling me the truth or there would be hell to pay."

Enter hell. Davis reports that the switch -- purchased from an equipment vendor he did not name but that remains in business by way of an investment group buyout -- sat in the rack for about three months. Ultimately the company reported to Davis the switch would not work unless he invested in all new edge switches.

With a planned network upgrade in the works, Davis says he started to bargain, thinking that if the vendor wanted his organization's business the company would take the switch back, make it work or provide concessions in a new contract. The vendor said it would take the switch back, only if Davis entered into a new contract.

"I asked them if they were willing to take the switch back because they couldn't make it work. Why didn't they do that before we pick a technology and company for the network upgrade, rather than making it contingent on getting the contract?" Davis says.

Meanwhile, the network upgrade had an aggressive schedule to install more than 250 switches, bring more power into 80 network closets, replace the UPS in each closet and in the network operations center, and upgrade the generator and cooling all in less than a month. "The [switch] company didn't even have the technology to make this happen, much less the skills, even though they promised it could be done," Davis says.