(no subject)

Bochner@das.harvard.edu writes: > I'm glad to hear that someone is having good experiences with Informix's > support, but I'm wondering what level of support you're getting. That is, > I'm curious as to whether the improved level of support you're seeing has > to do with you're having purchased more expensive support than what we have. No, we've purchased basic support, I think. Our maintenance cost is about 31% of the original purchase price of the software. Does that sound right to you for basic support? > My (admittedly old) experience with phone support was so frustrating I don't > bother calling them. Previous conversations with people on the Net have > given me the impression that large developers get better support than small > operations like us (we are licensed on just one machine, with @10 users, and > one programmer (me) doing in house development). I had nearly given up on phone support, myself, at one time - but the problems we had were costing more in manhours to try to resolve in-house than what we'd lose on the phone. So I kept at it - and things got better. We are running the Informix 4GL on an AT&T 3B2/600G, 16 users, 2 (soon to be 4) developers. However, we're supporting a lot of "military high brass", so that might have had an impact, but - I don't think so. I can't speak to what Informix might or might not respond to; I can only relate the experiences we've had at this site. > I recently learned about Informix-Link, and have signed up for it; the > paperwork hasn't gone through yet. The price of the high level support > (Regency?) is far too high for an operation of our size. I gather the Informix-Link you're referring to is the one available off the GEnie communications net. I found out about it too, but there are no dollars in our military budget to expend on it, so - *sigh*. Guess I'll have to stick with (this) Informix-Link and hope it pans out for everyone. Certainly the price is right! (Thanks, Walt!) > So, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me more about the conditions under > which you've been getting good support. Hope the above clarifies it for you. We're a small military-only development shop trying to hang in there and get a MIS working for a group of managers (Colonels & below). Our support (even by phone, 'tis true) wasn't good until after the 1st of February, when it suddenly got better and better and better . . . (Kinda reminds one of that stupid rabbit.) I think Informix has an excellent language (wait till you see what 4.10 has to offer - I'm actually delaying some new modules until I get the new version of the language with its extensions!) and their support has been improving. They really are trying to fix old complaints, improve their customer relations, and make Oracle more clearly appear to be what it is: a good SQL/3GL for small systems where a lot of flexibility is neither desired nor required. (Please, no flames - this is just my assessment after being exposed to both languages.) I'd like to see Oracle get the market standing it deserves. (I mean this *exactly* - please, no flames.) Bill Williams Programmer/Analyst ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Any opinions offered by me are mine alone and in no way reflect the judgment or opinions of the US Air Force, Department of Defense, or United States Government. BUT THEY SHOULD! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------