Re: Informix support: Where are you?

In article <1992Apr22.132513.660@halexv.uucp> greg@halexv.UUCP (Gregory F. Hogg) writes: >Neat! I really love the net, where else can you make a statement and be nailed >for it in front of so many people? :-) Dang! Just when I was working up to a really good flame war... :-) >In article <1992Apr21.193436.19122@informix.com> dranney@informix.com (David Ranney) writes: >>In article <1992Apr14.141938.726@halexv.uucp> greg@halexv.UUCP (Gregory F. Hogg) writes: >>>Craig, >>> >>> Good luck getting anyting from INFORMIX in the way of a fix >>>or work-around. In all my years of working with INFORMIX products (8 >>>years) the best answer I have gotten from them is "Yes it is a bug >>>and No we don't know when it will be fixed". This is why I see >>>paying for INFORMIX tech support as the biggest waste of money. They >>>have never, and I mean NEVER, been of any real help. >> >>Your comments disturbed me since I used to work in the front line tech support >>organization here, so I took the liberty of looking up your old cases. With >>three exceptions your cases were just quick one sentence questions on the order >>of what product is needed to call C from perform. > >How did you look up my old cases? I have worked for a number of >clients on a number of different projects. Did you lookup my name? >company? If so that would not find all cases as some if not most >would be under my clients name. We log calls based on the name of the customer even though he may be associated with different companies. This helps us track consultants as well as regular users. I looked under your name and got a number of cases. I may have missed cases which were opened by a different person but you participated in. >>One exception was a bug you ran into. The engineer immediately gave you the >>appropriate bug number and gave you all the information about the bug as she >>could > >Would that happen to be the one where query on last field casues the >program to dump core (in 4.0)? If so then it was the classic >INFORMIX line of "Yes it is a bug and No we don't know when it will >be fixed". Now let me say that I understand and don't blame tech >support of this answer, how can they don't when a bug will be fixed >for my port? What I don't like is paying good money for this answer. I can't say that I don't sympathize with you here. The bad news is that this is a problem in every Tech Support organization I've ever seen. The industry tends to draw this thick line between support and development (an unfortunate line in my opinion). In my humble opinion, Tech Support needs to be an autonomous organization which has some sign off on product. That way they don't take heat from sales or development, but I digress. >>One exception was functionality you wanted which didn't then exist in 4GL. >>The engineer immediately gave you the appropriate feature request number and >>added your name to the list of people requesting it. Incidentally, that >>functionality was implemented in the next version of the product. >> > >This must be the one where you can now find what is in the field >before the user presses ENTER. Great I have wanted this for years. >Now can I get this version WITHOUT paying for maintance. NOTE: I am >welling to pay for the update say 25% (ok 50%) of the price of the >product but all I want is the update NOT tech support. See a previous posting of mine (or subsequent depending on how news spits it out :-). >>One exeption was a limitation on string space you were running into. In that >>case the engineer immediately found and faxed you some appropriate technical >>articles, which, I might add, are comprehensive and very descriptive (IMO). > >Thanks for reminding me of this one. The faxed info was good but did >not really help. I.e. it told me why my program did not work but >this was no fix. I did rewrite my program to work around the string >space problems and have continued to do so for years. It did provide necessary information for you to work around it, didn't it? Sounds pretty useful to me. Is it perfect, no, was it helpful, yes. >>After reviewing your history, I'm at a loss to understand why you feel as >>hostile as you do toward Tech Support. In every case you got the appropriate > >Sigh, this is the big problem with news/email people get the wrong >impressions. I do not feel hostile toward Tech Support, well maybe a >little. Tech Support is a hard a dirty job and I for one would not >want that job. You don't feel hostile? Let's reread a few selections from your last post: >>> Good luck getting anyting from INFORMIX in the way of a fix >>>or work-around. >>>In all my years of working with INFORMIX products (8 years) the best answer >>>I have gotten from them is "Yes it is a bug and No we don't know when it >>>will be fixed". >>>This is why I see paying for INFORMIX tech support as the biggest waste of >>>money. They have never, and I mean NEVER, been of any real help. If that's not hostility, remind me to run away when you do become hostile. >>answer in the first call. Maybe I'm biased, but I don't see how that can be > >Now how can you really know this? You are looking at a database that >is created by tech support calls. It does not have my impressions of >the call. While that's true, we have no other way to determine what really happened with you're cases. At least the call log does provide factual information about what happened with your cases. Personally I find cryptic notes with facts such as "Gave bug information on #XXXX. Fixed in version YYYY" much more useful than ravings such as "Tech Support has NEVER been ANY HELP WHATSOEVER!" >I agree that most of the time tech support has been nice >and tried to help. But the bottom line is that in allmost every case >they did not fix the problem just told me that it was a bug and that I would >have to call back from time to time to find out it there was a new version >for my port and if the bug was fixed. Again, your complaint here is not with Tech Support as such but rather with the way Informix has set things up. If it didn't meet your needs, then I can't argue with your assertion that it's not adequate. I only ask that you not direct flames at the specific when your problem is with the general. >Again I don't feel hostile towards Informix tech support. I am very >hostile about paying for this tech support that I feel has not been >of any real help. If I had deep pockets the money would not matter. >All I want is some way of getting updates to INFORMIX products >without paying for maintance. Is that really to much to ask? In the >DOS world it is very common to sell updates without requiring >maintance why can't INFORMIX do this also? The answer to your last question is pretty clear. Unix vendors simply can't afford to treat things the way DOS vendors do. The volume isn't there to make up for the lack of maintenance contracts. Also, DOS products tend to induce questions of a more "how-to" nature. Unix problems can drag on and require much more expertise in a much wider range of products. The other reason is that if you don't charge m