JBA Millennium support

Last week I received a price quote for JBA's Millennium Support...because my
company has less than 150 concurrent users, our price was "only" USD $9000.
For that low, low price I would get three days of support over the New Year
weekend, plus access for the entire month of January to the 1-800 telephone
number that would move me to the front of the tech support queue ahead of
anyone who doesn't shell out for the support.

Nice 4th quarter, being-acquired-by-GEAC revenue enhancer, huh?

Obviously, I have issues with JBA's approach here, I'm wondering if maybe I
just misinterpreted what I've been told or am missing a point here
somewhere. 

        1.  Charging for support during the date rollover is ridiculous.  As
far as I can tell, most major software vendors are planning to provide
supporting during the date change.  I checked with one friend at an Oracle
application site and one at a JD Edwards site...they haven't heard of any
plans to charge extra for support or to close the support offices over the
New Year weekend.  

        2.  I'm sorry some rocket scientist in the administrative office
decided that the week of New Years was going to be a JBA holiday.  But I
don't care.  What kind of support organization just completely discounts the
Y2K rollover?  Okay, in a regular year closing over New Year is a little
inconvenient for customers doing year-end processing, but this one has the
potential to affect ALL customers.

        3.  Was 12/31/1999 such a surprise to JBA that they couldn't have
announced this plan last summer, when I could have had a shot at budgeting
for it?   Or would it have given people a chance to raise a fuss, rather
than hitting them in September 1999, three months before the date rollover?

        4.  If I don't buy the Millennium Support package, for the entire
month of January my calls go behind all the calls for people who do.   So if
I've done a good job with my Y2K testing and don't feel the need to boost
JBA's bottom line some more,  I'm punished with tech support delays.

        5.  There was no mention of how they were going to communicate any
newly-discovered bugs in January.  I wonder if I have to pay the nine grand
to find out about those...


If you think I've misunderstood the program or am overreacting, please let
me know.  At the moment I have a pretty low opinion of the program and the
management that would put this in place.


Craig Reise
IT Team Leader
Pollak, A Stoneridge Company

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