Re: IBM support

-----Original Message-----
From: M. Lazarus <mlazarus@ttec.com>
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Date: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 8:42 PM
Subject: IBM support


>  If anyone in IBM marketing wants to know how to get "developers on board"
>w/ the AS/400 platform, one way would be to follow Microsoft's lead.  I
>just received a blurb in the mail.
>
>  The front cover says: FREE TECHNICAL SUPPORT*.  Inside the "*" is
>explained: Surprise.  There's no catch.  When we said free, we meant free.
>
>  This is for M$ monitored news groups, knowledge base web site or Business
>Critical Phone Support.  24/7/365.
>
>  Contrast this w/ IBM support that makes you jump through hoops and has
>hefty charges.
>
>  Obviously, this is being paid for in some fashion, so if M$ can do it why
>can't IBM?  Just a thought.
>

Take my recent ThinkPad support experience.

I go to the web site.  I have 4 thinkpads.  I enter the one I am looking at.
I chase the web pages down to the exact problem (POST 8611). What do I get?

A page that tells me to start over and profile because the data is only
available to profiled users.

So after 15 minutes wasted chasing pages, I profile.  That takes another 15
minutes.  Then I chase the web pages again.  10 minutes later the "secret,
ultra-secure, non-public" page that was hidden from me as a non-profiled web
surfer, tells me (and I paraphrase here) "your machine is broken, contact
service".

Great.  All I really wanted to know is WHAT was broken.  Not to be informed
after half-a-damn-hour web pounding of something my little pee-wee brain has
already deduced.  GEEZ!


===========================================================
R. Bruce Hoffman, Jr.
 -- IBM Certified AS/400 Professional System Administrator
 -- IBM Certified AS/400 Professional Network Administrator

"The sum of all human knowledge is a fixed constant.
    It's the population that keeps growing!"



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