Hi Tony , I will probably regret this post - I never seem to get past one or 2 before the jumping down of throats begins ;-)
While I agree with what you say as far as support is concerned ( and I still stand by my statement that there is now and never has been any cost to report a bug to MS , talking to a real person to find a solution can be a different story ), personally I don't see access to product documentation and knowledgebase information as even remotely related to support. I look at it more as marketing. Why give away the system and not give away the info ? In my case , the particular VAR I have access to ( or rather my customers have access to ) consists of a company of 'developers' none of which have cracked a manual since the 70's, any mention of sockets or xml or http or services or anything post 1980 just begets blank stares and the shaking of heads. Virtually ANY questions directed at them have to be re-directed to IBM so what would have been a 30 second knowledgebase inquiry is dragged out to 4 weeks. And what can we do about it - nada. I realize that that is the way it is with IBM and I lived with quietly. I don't see the recent thread as complaining - that would imply that there is someone in a position to make a difference within earshot. It is just good old healthy venting and that's one of the good things about this kind of list, you can always find a sympathic ear even if just so that you know that you are alone in your opinions. Gerry -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tony Gravagno Sent: July 7, 2006 17:05 To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: RE: [U2] UV - tech support Many unrelated comments. I think Chuck is right. Influencing change must go through the right business channels and must be presented in a business-professional context. Unfortunately I've been making the same speech to D3 people for years now and they would rather dump RD and come to IBM than to enter into discourse with their vendor. Well, this is the way business is done and it's the same here as it was there, so follow Chucks initiative or start looking to jump to some other company. You have chosen to work with one of the biggest companies in the world which supports thousands of products. They got where they are through standardization - for right (usually) or wrong (occasionally) you know what you get when you go IBM. It has taken a long time since the acquisition of U2 but (with the dedicated efforts of the U2 management people who represent you) IBM has been slowly working these products into their product family so that they are supported just like all others. While this is a great step for credibility and your own piece of mind that IBM really has adopted your platforms of choice, it also means you now need to deal with a big company that has to follow the same frustrating rules for all of its product users. Smaller companies have more versatility - pick a side that suits your needs. As far as VARs being against the open flow of documentation, my sentiment is must as above. No antagonism intended but what you want is largely irrelevant. IBM is a publicly owned company and manages its IP assets in a consistent manner. As David says, this is NOT a democracy. That said, someone in the U2 group at IBM might have some latitude in this matter, so contact your IBM sales rep, your Support manager, or your U2 development contact and present your case or ask them who can help with making documentation available. (I don't know the corporate structure for U2 like I do other MV companies, sorry.) Regarding paying to report bugs - c'mon, how long have you guys been in the IT world? I am all for open support whenever possible but there are business concerns where lines need to be drawn. Think about how expensive it is to have people answer the phone or email, and how many people abuse free services. Most of us in this industry include yearly maintenance fees as part of our normal business model. If you don't pay a vendor a support fee why do you think you are still entitled to the same support as those who do? Asking off-support customers to pay for services they use ensures that only those who are serious will get through. The offer to refund payment in the case of bugs might seem like an obvious thing to do, but in this world it's actually a generous practice that many companies do not employ. By a show of hands, how many people here pay their clients back if a bug is found in their software? I didn't think so... Regarding going through a VAR for support, I've been through this at RD. There are mixed blessings on the policy but in general it's a good policy. An informed VAR channel is a good VAR channel. When end-users go direct to the DBMS vendor it bypasses the VAR and the VAR doesn't learn how to support the platform for which they are collecting support fees. When an end-user dumps a bad VAR for lack of competence it's bad for all of us in this market. Getting VARs to support their downline is an effective way to ensure VARs know their products as well as the needs of their client base. If the client doesn't like their VAR, or likes them for application support but finds them useless for everything else, that's an important business statement to the upline who authorizes that VAR to conduct business in their name. Asking end-users to go direct also decreases the support burden on the upline and allows them to focus on "real problems" while the simpler tier-1 issues are being handled by people in the field, who again are after all being paid a commission to provide this service to their clients anyway. If upline (IBM) support is burdened with tier-1 questions, eventually they will just raise product pricing to compensate for their loss - again, that's bad for everyone. I wish people would consider the larger business issues before complaining about policies. If you have issues with policies, think about how to fix them in a way that still allows most people to win. If you can't think of how to change things then you're at the same level as the people who instituted the policies you don't like, so complaining won't serve any purpose anyway. ;) Have a great and trouble-free day! T ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
