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Re: Informix coming to Linux, Dump Oracle NOW!

From: Bjorn Borud <borud_at_guardian.no>
Date: 1997/12/12
Message-ID: <m2n2i61w91.fsf@lucifer.guardian.no>#1/1

[shendrix_at_gypsy.atlantic.infi.net (Shannon Hendrix)]
|
| Same here. $40K a year for support contract and they have trouble
| answering some of the simplest questions.

generally support contracts for off-the-shelf applications like Oracle are often a waste of money if you have competent people in your organization. it is hard to describe your problem to someone who is not familiar with your application and/or environment and some times it is also hard to convince the person at the other end of the line that "no, I'm not an idiot, I have tried the obvious".

not that I have called support that often, but I've never actually solved a problem with help from any support people in any software company. I always end up tracing system calls and stepping through debuggers.

| In the end, we've either gotten the ``Give us $$$ for a new
| version'' answer or their staff was clueless. We've had to code
| workarounds and fix everything ourselves for the most part.

customers are usually too kind. they should demand a fix or a refund. the problem is: they're usually stuck since they have deadlines to meet and tasks to complete. if they tell the database vendor to take a hike it costs them money as well.

Oracle of course knows this :-)

I remember the last time I reported a bug to Solid (http://www.solidtech.com/). I sent the mail around 0900 in the morning and when I returned to the office after a meeting around 1500 they had already mailed me an URL where I could download a fixed version. God, I love that :-)

-Bjørn

-- 
 Bjørn Borud <borud_at_guardian.no>       | "The Net interprets censorship 
 <URL:http://www.pvv.unit.no/~borud/>  | as damage and routes around it."
 UNIX person, one of "them"            |         - John Gilmore
Received on Fri Dec 12 1997 - 00:00:00 CST

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