[oclug] To What Degree, Support?

[Francis J. A. Pinteric]

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 21:42:22 -0400
Mike Roy <mjroy2416 at rogers.com> wrote:
>
> 	So, the short answer to your question is, yes, support is
> 	important to me 
> because I don't have the knowledge to repair a broken computer on my
> own. Cheers,
> 

So then, in the general sense, support becomes important to you when you
are out of your depth, correct? That makes sense.

I suppose I'm trying to understand support in the generalized sense. I
too would expect some level of support for everything I purchase. I too
would expect more support the less about something I know.

The guy who said he prefers to buy components and build his own computer
seemed disappointed with the service of Sprint when one of those
components failed. Chris H., on the other hand, never had any problems
with service from them, but he bought complete systems.

Myself, I too prefer to roll-my-own machines, but unlike the first
gentleman I would not expect much support from the retailer or
wholesaler beyond a possible 30-day nofault replacement warranty. I
would normally deal with the manufacturer directly. Just too many things
can go wrong with the guy who builds his own machines, and represents
far too great a risk from the vendor's perspective. I personally know,
as I'm sure you do as well, some people who simply should not go
anywhere near machines, yet they insist on fiddling with them.

But what sort of support would you expect from a non-material vendor.
Let's suppose you are purchasing a service from an ISP? What services
would you expect from an ISP and what is the support you expect? Suppose
you were in need of the services of a webhosting or VPS provider? What
would you expect from them?

>From my experience with ISP's in the past, I could expect little support
from them because I ran Linux, as I'm sure you've experienced also. Even
those companies that ran Linux as their servers were loath to support
me. I cite as an example Mondenet who I used for a couple of years
starting in 1995. They ran their servers on Linux but couldn't tell me
how to get Linux to talk to them. That necessitated that I learn how PPP
worked all on my own. Mondenent was alone in this area.  But that was in
the past. I don't know what the situation is today regarding support for
Linux at the various ISP's, but I suspect it might not have improved.
Are they still loath to support us?. I know Rogers offers no support for
Linux users at all except if perchance you happen to call the support
line and another Linux user is on the other end of the phone.

When I worked in the nuclear industry, our customers expected a level of
service that simply boggled the mind. Not only did they expect 24/7
availability, but should something go wrong, even if it was not
nuclear related, they would expect support to such a degree that should
something go wrong a support person would be made available to travel
half way around the world to fix the problem, if necessary. Even for the
most trivial of problems. On one occasion I had to fly to South Africa
simply to push in a loose cable that somehow had worked its way loose
on a computer system I designed. [Actually, that trip was useful in that
it uncovered a problem in the way we cabled the system which we fixed on
future systems.]

That of course is a ridiculous example, but the nuclear industry is
really a ridiculous industry where the level of support expected by the
customer is literally unreal.

But, getting back to more mundane support issues ... What sort of
support would OCLUG members require of service providers taking the case
of a webhosting service or Virtual Personal Server provider? Suppose an
ISP or VPS provider said no support at all, or at least no support for
Microsoft users? ;-)

>>>--fja->


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