Support matters

[Barnacle Wes]

In article <1519 at ddsw1.UUCP>, learn at ddsw1.UUCP (William Vajk) writes:
% One of my beefs with uport, and I've stated this time and again in this
% newsgroup, is that support is never supposed to mean paying a publisher
% to cover their tracks for screwups. Support is supposed to mean helping
% a customer lacking information or experience to use the product. I've
% never once requested _support_ from your firm. For many months I have
% asked uport to fix the product.

In article <723 at wb3ffv.UUCP>, howardl at wb3ffv.UUCP (Howard Leadmon ) replies:
>  Well I will agreee with you on the statement made above, and Uport should NOT
> charge anybody the cost os a support contract when all they want are bugs 
> reported/fixed in the original release that was shipped to them. For this 
> reason I too have only purchased the UPDATE service, since due to my years
> of UNIX experience I really don't require hand holding...

That would depend on whether the bugs are Microport's, or AT&Ts.  Also,
you have to remember the price Microport is charging for this stuff - I
bought my system in Dec. 86, and it cost (I think) $550.  I looked at
two other systems at the same time.  I could have bought SCO Xenix, for
$1200 for roughly the same system.  Higher cost, a little bit better
support, but not enough to make it worthwhile.  I also could have bought
Sperry's (now Unisys') Xenix for $2500.  Why so much?  The Sperry
product comes with the kind of support you would expect from such a
company, and it costs a lot of money.

My brother works in the Unix Support Group at Unisys.  They have some
major customers, and he and several other support people worked most of
last weekend on fixing a "drop-dead" problem for a large customer.  Do
you know how much it costs to have 4 or 5 software/engineering types
work a weekend?  That's why the OS costs so much more - the support is
included!
-- 
                     {hpda, uwmcsd1}!sp7040!obie!wes
           "Happiness lies in being priviledged to work hard for
           long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing."
                         -- Robert A. Heinlein --