Re: IBM Maintenance alternatives

[Michael Ryan <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Darn right...if you pay for a service, use the service. I don't understand
why people with maintenance contracts are hesitant to call IBM...I just
figure they're the 'senior technical resource'.

On 1/6/05 09:15 AM, "rob@xxxxxxxxx" <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Years back (S/36 days) we used to use Sorbus maintenance and Decision Data
> maintenance.  They were "ok" but we're happier with IBM maintenance.  What
> gets me is that the outside maintainers base their prices on x% of IBM
> prices.  Even when IBM artificially jacks up their prices on older
> equipment to make purchasing the newer equipment look more attractive.  I
> can see why people like James do their own maintenance on their antiquated
> hardware when you probably can buy 2 of their current boxes on Ebay for
> the cost of one month of maintenance.  Back when we used twinax printers
> and the maintenance started getting so dang expensive, we started buying
> used ones and warehousing them.
> 
> We also have the philosophy that if we are paying through the nose for
> software/hardware maintenance we call IBM at the drop of a hat.  Never a
> week goes by that I don't open a couple of pmr's.  Recently I worked a
> week where I only came in for 1/2 day and still opened 2 pmr's.
> 
> Rob Berendt