Ooooppppsss didn't want to start a religious war... neither did I intend to seem ungrateful for the effort all of the guys from IBM (not just Andy) are contributing to this list!
And if anyone is wondering... we do have a support contract with IBM - but never the less, as Lawrence mentioned there are things you can't raise as an issue to support - especially if it's not related to a defect in the program! Sometimes there are questions you'll never get through support to the persons intended... e.g. I've raised a question to IBM related to a roadmap for GWTSA - I tried through our sales representive, support and finally this list... never heard from IBM directly - but Andy did answer in here ;o) Regarding the religious part... I'm not hung up to a specific NOS or something like that - Novell just happens to be the area I have specialized in - and I've sticked to it because it's stable and offers solutions that rock. So please don't take the following the wrong way... but I'm just tired of people saying there's no Novell out there, and tired of Novell doing nothing on the marketing side... the following is numbers listed by Gardner Group so I guess Novell is still out there: - Servers worldwide: 4.500.000 servers! - Users worldwide: 81.000.000 - 80% of all Fortune 1000 companies has implemented NetWare. - Novell GroupWise users worldwide: 34.000.000 (a raise of 10% compared to last year) - eDirectory licenses in use worldwide: 1.500.000.000 ... and last but not least - I'm tired of people still saying that Novell is not supporting 3. party vendors... As I can see (and my personal experience) is that Novell is moving very fast towards open source software! They are extremely open to let 3. party vendors access their API's... And for the record... I didn't raise this as a result of missing answers to my personal posts - but wouldn't it be nice... ;o) So if I have forgotten to say it to you guys from IBM, and the rest of you watching this list; "Thank you fellows for helping us and saving me... again!" (special thanks to you Zlatko for the quote). With my best regards ;o) Flemming -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: Gianluca Mariani1 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sendt: 25. juli 2003 08:48 Til: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Emne: Re: Wouldn't it be nice... Zlatko, the last two months meditating in a monastery in Tibet have been very helpful... IBM employees who participate to this list cannot but be grateful to all of you who understand why we do it. it's a reward that falls outside of business metrics. ;-) Cordiali saluti Gianluca Mariani Tivoli TSM Global Response Team, Roma Via Sciangai 53, Roma phones : +39(0)659664598 +393351270554 (mobile) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation product that "it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words ? and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded -their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws"... Zlatko Krastev <[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ET> cc: Sent by: "ADSM: Subject: Re: Wouldn't it be nice... Dist Stor Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] .EDU> 25/07/2003 02.49 Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" I recall ten years ago Novell Netware had about 60-70% market share in file/print serving. But they later lost the momentum and their market share decreased significantly. That ought to explain why IBM is having much more people dedicated to AIX, Windows, Solaris, even Linux than to Netware. And if from all those Windows-assigned people only Andy Raibeck have some time to monitor to the list, from where you expect to come more people for your favorite platform!?! Others already wrote, but I will repeat it again - all IBM employees are volunteering here as this is not the official support channel. Support is supposed to assist you only in resolving problems. Many problems cannot be resolved without providing details about the configuration. There is a very big difference between sending company sensitive data to a single entity and making it publicly available to everyone. For education there is IBM Learning Services, for solution development there is IBM Global Services, there are IBM Business Partners providing services and add-on products, etc. They can provide to your company commitment, predictable results, ... and a price. On the list you can see anything: RTFM questions, newbie questions, same question again and again, "I want to test did I really get subscribed", TSM-related and unrelated postings, etc. If you were in a position of an IBM manager, how could you measure effectiveness, knowledge and responsiveness of the part of your team reading the list? There is no need to say "God bless Andy and Del" each morning. But we can post a one-row memo with thanks after they helped us. What I see usually on this list is: a question; an answer; a clarification/additional question(s); an additional/final answer; ... and nothing!!! No rewards to those who helped. Very few people bother to say thank you after the problem is resolved. But many are *demanding* assistance with unnecessary re-posts. Now repeat after me: "Thank you ... fellows ... for helping us ... and saving me ... again!" On the end, a message to IBM managers which do not read this list at all !!!: Tracking a forum like this one can provide you with pile of useful information - competitive advantages/disadvantages, faster resolution of unordinary problems, good success stories without make-up and much more. The fertilizer for the forum is participation of people like Andy Raibeck, Del Hoobler, Neil Rasmussen and his predecessor Thiha Than, Gianluca Mariani (though he possibly ran away to Tibet again for the last two months :-) and all those supportive IBM employees. I would also recommend the list as a teaching tool for support staff the same way I've learned TSM - read the list completely and try to find the resolution to the problem alone, later compare the results with other suggestions and initial poster's report (if such one exists). The approach can be used for both real-life lessons and real-life testing of the staff. You can benefit from the list if you invest time and resources in it! Zlatko Krastev IT Consultant Flemming Hougaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 24.07.2003 17:21 Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject: Wouldn't it be nice... There can be no doubt, that we all appreciate the effort Andy Raibeck from Tivoli contributes to this mailinglist! However it's my belief, that Andy is mostly involved in TSM for Microsoft - even though he has been answering some questions related to Novell... But wouldn't it be nice to have some guys, or gals, from Tivoli there are involved in the TSM for NetWare development to look this mailinglist over? There are some people in here, that are extremely reliable when it comes to answering questions related to Novell - thanks for that... but still I see a lot of these questions related to Novell that remain unanswered! So wouldn't it be nice... Regards Flemming
