Squeaky Wheels (was Re: Microport Announces....)

[Doug Salot]

In article <444 at l5comp.UUCP> scotty at l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) writes:
>This site at least paid $$$ for automatic upgrades on up to 2 major releases
>in a one year period and 10 free bug fixes, all postage paid.
>
>Instead we now find that Microport demands:
>
>1. PROOF OF OWNERSHIP!!! We must return diskettes to Microport to prove we own
>it, I thought we did that when we bought the damn update contract???
>
>2. We have to pay them $15 postage. We already paid $$$ for postage, now they
>want to stiff us for another $15???
>
>3. The "automatic" upgrade just isn't too damn automatic anymore...

There aren't too many things Microport does to you that are terrible
by themselves, but they do a number of stupid and audacious things
that tend to cause you to keep Rolaids always within reach.

I also have an upgrade contract.  I bought it when I upgraded from
2.2 to 2.3.  My 2.3 came with a buggy "divvy" which happened to
cause the hard disk device table to be just munged enough that
an attempted format of unit 1 would successfully format unit 0.

Microport had fixed the bug before I was unfortunate enough to
discover it, but, in spite of my upgrade contract, I never received
the fixed divvy, nor was I even notified of it's existence (or
the potential problem) until I called to report the slight inconvenience
of having my hard disk unexpectedly initialized.

I find it unconscionable that any manufacturer can not only
release a system with MAJOR components severely munged, but
also fail to even notify users of the availability of fixes --
especially when they have accepted money to do that very
thing!

BTW, the above is not an isolated example (is anybody still
using the munged console driver?), nor is it a problem with
the ATT/Intel/Interactive port.  The biggest headaches from
Microport are generated by Microport employees.

-- 
Doug Salot || doug at feedme.UUCP || ...{zardoz,dhw68k}!feedme!doug
               Have you hugged a nihilist today?