To be fair to AD -- while they shouldn't force us into business with ridiculous relics like the reseller network, and they should certainly be putting more pressure on the resellers to do business in a more customer-friendly way, the reseller's incompetence isn't their fault.
I'm sure that many things are spelled out in contracts that are still binding but long out-of-date in their terms. Heck, there might be a contractual obligation somewhere that they get hard copies only via snailmail or fax. Stupid as fuck, and should be changed, but maybe expensive to do? I've noticed that they are now selling licenses for some products online. I assume that this is because old exclusive territory agreements with resellers are starting to expire. With any luck they'll all be gone in a couple more years and there will be one less parasitic middleman to pay. Never once got any real value out of having a reseller (going on 15 years now). Not a bad guy, but doesn't seem to have any way of actually doing anything for me. Under the current system he has no incentive to figure one out.
