RE: Support for Cobalt Products (Was: Re: [cobalt-security] kerne l corrupted!)

[Wayne Kiedaisch <wayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gerald, and the rest of the list,

My reason for complaining is that I believe a certain level of "quality"
support should be provided free of charge when you purchase any
hardware/software product. At the very least, quality e-mail support should
be provided. I was also not properly informed upon purchasing the product
that quality technical support was NOT included. When have you bought a PC
where support was not included?

I understand the need to charge for things such as 4 hour replacement and
immediate attention, but the documentation is sketchy at best, and their
tech support by phone (I mean by voicemail) is not  acceptable when working
with customers who need answers right away. If that were not enough, the
patches and kludginess of the OS and the web interface is enough to make my
technicians and support persons SCREAM! And guess who has to hear about it?
Me and my customers.

Has anyone tried to restore a back-up? Has anyone tried to restore a crashed
server? It's not pretty. And it's not good business IMHO. They are fixing a
bunch of things, but they have been doing this for several years now, and I
am not impressed with their progress. I looked at their product, the Cube, a
few years back and was not impressed. I decided to give them another try
with the RAQ3i. I am fairly impressed with the product, made a lot of
suggestions and recommendations, and am patiently, (or impatiently) waiting
for the changes to be made so that the product can stand on its own feet
without my having to call my UNIX system administrator every day to fix
things or look at what the web interface screwed up again. I was expecting a
system that was easily managable. Instead I found a server that requires a
lot of attention, and we are stuck fixing the bugs and writing our own
documentation. I feel like a Microsoft beta tester at times. It just isn't
good business. That's all.

If I had great support from the company, I would be willing to tolerate
having to be a beta tester. But when someone needs to ask someone else who
needs to find someone else to try to find the answer, it is a bit
discouraging to say the least.

Sorry for the rant. It's been a long day, but I didn't want to appear to be
a complainer without having good reason to be. And I believe I have good
reason. If the company provided free quality tech support I would support
the company 120%! We're not calling to ask how to add users. We are calling
because there are bugs with their software and we want to help fix them so
that we can sell more boxes and hopefully make more $$$ with less work.

Wayne@xxxxxxx <mailto:Wayne@xxxxxxx> 


-----Original Message-----
From:	Gerald Waugh [SMTP:gerald@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent:	Tuesday, June 27, 2000 2:03 PM
To:	cobalt-security@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:	Re: Support for Cobalt Products (Was: Re: [cobalt-security]
kernel corrupted!)

Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
On: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 11:29 AM

> Wayne Kiedaisch wrote:
>
> > Yes, Cobalt's phone tech support sucks. Unless it improves very soon, we
> > will be looking at other machines to purchase in the future.
>
> If you're expecting free support I really can't help you, except to
> commiserate.
>
Jeff,
This is true, Cobalt *SELLS* support, like most businesses
(jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx). If you are not buying it, be appreciative of what
you
do get! Just my 2 cents.
This list should not be used to *BASH* Cobalt (It's not productive). Cobalt,
like it or not, is our partner! Cobalt can help us, and we can help Cobalt!
Gerald



_______________________________________________
cobalt-security mailing list
cobalt-security@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://list.cobalt.com/mailman/listinfo/cobalt-security