Re: Question: Did we made a mistake in choosing Oracle?

Sophistry (sophistry_at_aol.com) wrote:
: Dear Oracle users:
:
: Is this what we should expect to put up with in the future? We recently
: decided
: to stop development on Ingres (due to lack of CA support) and start new
: projects using Oracle. Even though the product is shipped with no
: documentation
: (we were assured documentation was included in the product before
: ordering),
: the installation went fine.
:
: Now while waiting for the documentation to arrive (at an additional cost
: of course)
: we decided to print off the forms tutorial and step through it. At about
: step 4, it
: says compile the form. Of course it does not work, some error about
: PL/SQL
: source not found.
:
: An excuse to try support. First you need to get the CSI number. Why
: wasn't it
: shipped with the product? Answer: to force new users to listen to 20
: minutes
: of Oracle info-mercials (on the users' nickel). Received the CSI and a
: TAR and
: was put through to the holding pattern for technical support. After
: another 15
: minutes of dead time (other then making Sprint happy), we hung up.
:
: Our question is, what is the average time it takes to talk to a human and
: once
: contact has been made to get an answer?
:
: This is a serious question, since we would rather eat the cost now rather
: then
: waste six months and then throw it out in frustration.
:
: Thank you in advance for any responses and experiences shared.
:
: Marvin Hubenthal
: Sophistry Inc.

I can't of course speak for everyone, but getting in to Oracle Support can be a pain in the a**. It now depends on the level of support you purchase, and whether you have a production system thats down when you call. For general first time install questions, it can seem like an unbelievable chore to have to put up with the nightmare of 'Press 2 ... now' messages and infomercials. But when you're really stuck, you'll get to one of the guys in Oracle who actually knows whats going on, and your problem is usually solved in very reasonable time... ( Of course this can now turn into that thread about how it took 4 months and more to solve this or that...) But in general, I've found that when you need them most, some guy in the bowels of Oracle will emerge to save your bacon. ( or at least tell you that it'll be fixed in the next release.)

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