A horror story

[Robertson John MAJ]

In addition to the glitches and headaches of applying the second 
update set to our AIX 1.2 implementation, it turned out that the 
3com card was STILL silent.  Weeks of phone calls to GTSI, IBM's 
government dealer, were handled by folks simply not competent to 
answer question concerned with this product.

At any rate, I scrounged an IBM service number and spoke with some
real people about the failure of the TCP/IP LPP to talk to the
3com card.  It turns out that we were missing a BIG piece--another
LPP called operating system extensions or something like that.

This was aggravating for a number of reasons.  First, the original 
package quoted by GTSI was supposed to talk to the 3com card.  Second,
the TCP/IP documentation is silent on the need for an additional 
package.  THird, the IBM support people were very tentative about
any 3com support at all.  Fourth, (listen up, federal folks!) 
GTSI technaical service is a disgrace.  Why IBM deals with them is
a mystery to me.  FIfth, and worst of all, it'll be months before I can
process all the paperwork needed to buy the remaining LPP.

On the brighter side, a nice person from IBM Baltimore found out 
about our distress, called me, and promised to conduct an inquiry.
The sentiment was nice, but the whole thing really soured me on
AIX.  Several purchase decisions will now probably go to a different 
platform.

Moral of the story?  Buy a Sun.

Jack
(These views are my own and do not represent the official views of
USMA, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.)