Oracle Support Service Quality

I would like some answers regarding the level of support oracle provide, and are people using it find it acceptable, etc. The following is a roblem I experienced today, and

I have used Oracle for many years now, and all this time, I have not needed to contact anyone directly at Oracle, except today, when I wanted to download some trial software, after registration, I find that the ftp.oracle.com was down (been 8++ hours since I know), and having gone to an Oracle conference yesterday, I had the Melbourne Australia branch number right almost on my desk, and upon calling from my cellular phone to see if Oracle realised that their server was down, I had done through 3 personell, and the 3rd person told me to explain her the problem again (i mentioned technet.oracle.com, and it looked like she had no idea what I was talking about, then I mentioned that the ftp.oracle.com machine is responding ping's, but the services on the port seems not running (connection refused...telnet ftp.oracle.com ftp), and suddently I had to explain again why I called, what my whatever number was, and how I managed to talk to them in the first place, since all clients are charged, and suddently, after explain her all over the god-damn story again, she asked me hold on, and see who can help me, gosh, I am looking at my phone which says I have just wasted around 20 min, and another 3 minutes of hold and still no response, until out of frustration I hung up.

Anyhow, back to the www.oracle.com.au, and after taking around 10 minutes+ to get to a page where there are phone numbers of melbourne office, ( I cannot seem to belive this, fron teh fonr page, I follow "Ask Oracle", then still no numbers, click "Australia" (of-course, I am already in australia, why have to click again), I get a mail-to. Gosh, I have never seen such level of web-design. Remember, this is now about 40 minutes past in sheer frustration.) Shouldn't "contact" pretty much be the first page of the damn webpage. (the www.oracle.com has fantactic site).

Now, in reflection:

• what I heard from the speaker from oracle say "just give us a call and we will answer...." is rubbish.
  • you need some kind of a customer number before you can say that the ftp server is down, and gosh, suddenly this is so complicated. I must say, if our Oracle server would have been down today, I would have had to kill someone today, and get killed myself.
  • www.oracle.com.au is hadly a site one consider has any thought on usabibilty (know that I been there, and out of frustration, I can suddenly pick on far too many problems, which I tolerated before)
• overal impression. Recently, I have become in the position to make business decisions, in purchaces, etc. and after hearing about Oracle 8i and etc, I was actually thinking of looking at Oracle for 2-3 projects which will begin soon., and mind-you, this will be a huge project, and certain orcal stood by my mind all the time until today. Now, if this is what support means for oracle, than I think this is not worth my time. I know the problem is so simple, but it was very important in our planning to get organised, and wasting the friday afternoon means now wasting another monday, or god-knows-what is wrong, when things will get fixed, if there is a problem, etc. This is definately not in any means I consider at all the quality of service. I have never had to deal with anything else before, but if something like this is so complicated, then what would happen if something really serious was about.? I already have narrowed the search, ran traceroute, etc.
• culture wise. Is it common to get such a shitty phone service, I spoke to quite a few personells (first was the general redirection, then hold, then another hold, and then after some hold, someone picked up, and had no idea who I was, and it was the first time she had heard me, and I start all over again, and I am back to where I startd from). Is this the general melbourne oracle, or autralia wide, world-wide. It would have actually been cheaper for me to walk across a floor, up a room and make an international call to US, then talk 30min on my mobile phone. (may i mention that this have been my first phone level conversation with Oracle. But I have dealing with larger/small comp. and never such a crappy level of service.) I would have even settled for "sorry, can I find out more about the problem, and see what I can do..."
• I have talked about Oracle to hundred of people in a year,(for years) in teaching design, architecture, concepts (and now there is something to add to it, cust. service)

BTW, I could not find an appropirate email to mail the problem in the first place, wich is why I thought I would call and see if Oracle Corp in Melb know about the problem, and be able to do something about it.

Disgusted.
Atish

--
Eats code, sleeps with OO, dreams of Patterns -- and still mutually exclusive While the rest of the days go by teaching

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