Software Services Survey

[Rajendra Dodhiawala <rajd@AI.CEL.FMC.COM>]

You asked for it:

>> Re: Recent message related to Software Support >>

- How often do you use the 800 number for software support?

Every four months or so in the past year, but extensively when I do.
The times match the implementation phase of our project. And building
large pieces of software is the best way to learn the idiosyncracies
of Genera as well as discover bugs.

- When did you last do so?

A week ago.

- Any comments/criticisms/praise for the quality, speed, value of the aid
you get? 

Quality: extremely poor. It takes forever to convey the problem
because half the time people have barely heard about what you are
trying to do. Speed sucks: I have probably got 2 out of 10 questions
answered at all, and maybe one of these was in a couple of days.
Usually, I provided the answer or hacked around the problem.  And bugs
from 7.1 took different incarnation in 7.2 [eg. (send my-prog-frame
:set-configuration) v/s (dw::set-program-frame-configuration ...)].
Lately, I just call to make Symbolics aware of the problem, not to get
answers. In fact, I reported a couple of bugs in SCT last week and
some other problems (to which I knew a way around), but am curious
how the support person will handle my problem. (Note the change in tense.) 

More often than not, the first response is "I tried to recreate your
error, but am not getting it!" Are you sure you are running 7.2, have
ECOs loaded, ... They should have asked that first before taking
several days to do so.

- Do you notice any change since 1988 in the quality, speed and/or
value of the 800 number?

Nope. Probably got worse.

- How often do you use customer-support e-mail for software support?

Never.

- When did you last do so?

NA

- Any comments/criticisms/praise for the quality, speed, value of the
aid you get?

NA

- Do you notice any change since 1988 in the quality, speed and/or
value of the e-mail responses?

NA

- Do you feel you are at any disadvantage because of the rapidity with
which you get system patches?

- Would you really utilize patches that were distributed on e-mail?

Why not!

- Would you pay more for software support if you could get bug reports,
patches, ECOs and workarounds on a daily or weekly basis by e-mail?

Nope. It should be free. Bug reports are generated by us, and we ought
to have access to them for free. That's the case with most of the
patches too from what I see on the net. The process certainly needs to
be streamlined for prompt service as well as widespread awareness.
A bboard could be created for announcing(!) bugs (SLUG-BUGS).

- Other comments and questions always welcome. Thanks again.

I agree whole-heartedly with the message from Chris Maeda. The folks
at software support need to be experienced in all aspects. Or else you
should have specialists in SCT, DW, etc. who will recognize our
problems (bugs, clarifications, etc) more easily.  Otherwise, I end up
giving test code and spend lengthy hours on the phone trying to debug
or recreate the errors.

				
				- rajendra