commercial e-mail, problem database (was:Hot line)

[ams at ACM.PRINCETON.EDU]

I really don't see what the problem is.  A number of commercial
companies right now have e-mail hotline support, and even 
encourage its use for low priority problems (especially those
that are of the "look at this 200 line segment of code, why is
... not placed in a full word at ...").  

For all the fluff about what constitutes "proper" use of the 
internet, I really don't think anyone will care if SGI adds
a support at sgi.com so long as they don't collect a special
fee for using it.  NCD & MIPs routinely answer questions
in this way right now.  It is my impression that questions
emailed to either will be answered regardless of maintenance
agreement status, however, there is no guaranteed turn around
time.  

As far as what SGI should do, my hotline response time is
consistantly good (and I am on the east coast).  However, a lot 
of times I think I would prefer to place an 800 line call but get the
response via email and say a follow up call the next day.

--ams
_________________________________________________________________________
 Andrew Simms, System Manager
 Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics
 Princeton University
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