Re: Informix support: Where are you?

In article <price.704520331@helios> price@helios.unl.edu (Chad Price) writes: [Most of article deleted...] > > Perhaps if enough people scream lound enough or vote with their check books, > then Informix managment will listen, and will change policies; but I > believe the problems lie at the top, not in the technical portions of the > company. As a product Informix is OK - nothing brilliant, but adaquate; and its > portability across Unix and MS-DOS have some very good points. > > chad > price@helios.unl.edu 4-6 years ago, I had ongoing interaction with Informix Tech support over a number of issues. For example, they were dropping support for their pre-SQL product and not offering any backward compatibility or upgrade path to SQL because it was a "different product". I came away with the following analysis, essentially in agreement with Chad: o There are some smart developers at Informix. They really do have a nice product. o Tech support *never* sends out bug fixes, making them almost totally useless to a serious developer. This is not their choice. After wading through the front ranks, you can find some in tech support who understand the bug you are running into. Unfortunately, they are prevented from helping by company policy. (other than giving workarounds. Whoopee.) o The origin of this thread, a nasty bug in the current C-ISAM and Informix's refusal to provide a fix, shows that this policy is still firmly in effect. Informix's maintenance and support *policies* seem designed to milk the maximum money out of developers and customers with the minimum possible investment in customer support. Thus, in the fashion of (at least the old) IBM, the customer is motivated to pay for maintenance by the cost of changing development environments, rather than any benefit of tech support. If any of these decision-makers had to *use* their products, that policy would change fast, because it is *VERY FRUSTRATING*, and left me with an abiding distaste for the company (and an abiding sympathy for the tech support people who really wanted to help). Probably the best thing an Informix employee reading this thread could do is digest it and slide a copy under company officer's doors (late one night). Philip Bohannon (bohannon@paul.rutgers.edu)