jimr@maths.su.oz.au (Jim Richardson) (07/14/90)
In article <344@shrike.AUSTIN.LOCKHEED.COM> in comp.sys.hp, Daniel A Haug (aihaug@AUSTIN.LOCKHEED.COM) writes: DH> Sorry to bother the net (again!), but I've been waiting for almost DH> THREE WEEKS for HP Tech support to call me on this one!!!! (Yes, DH> I've called them back, too, over 12 TIMES!!!!!!). [I do hope that DH> some HP engineers are listening to this, along with their management!!]. DH> DH> [ ... details of Lisp problem omitted ... ] DH> DH> I'd appreciate hearing from anyone in-the-know who can shed some light DH> on this. And I apologize for offending anyone with my attitude, but DH> this kind of response from HP really stinks. I've worked with Silicon DH> Graphics, Sun, and Symbolics tech support... HP doesn't even come close. I for one am not offended by Dan's attitude: I sympathize because of my own experiences with slow response from the Apollo Division on APRs (Apollo Pro- duct Reports). Admittedly, these are written rather than telephoned. But I'd be *overjoyed* if I even got an acknowledgement in three weeks, let alone an answer. Urgent APRs that I submitted to the HP Australian Response Centre in February and March, and which they passed on to Chelmsford, have still not been officially acknowledged from there. The Australian team is making great efforts to change this, and improvements do seem to be imminent (thanks, guys), but it's been a long time coming. By the way, has anyone anywhere ever received a reply to an APR emailed to the address apr_cs_admin@apollo.hp.com given in the mkapr manual page? Or do they just ignore Australian ones? In article <1340130@hpclsun.HP.COM>, jimmyb@hpclsun.HP.COM (Jimmy Benjamin) replies: JB> Hi Dan, JB> JB> I'm Jimmy Benjamin, the product marketing engineer for HP Common Lisp. JB> I read your posting yesterday, and discussed it with our support JB> organization. Here is my understanding of the facts: JB> JB> (1) You have received an answer to your support question, namely that JB> call-by-reference is supported in HP Common Lisp. HP supports the JB> standard Lucid Common Lisp foreign function interface. JB> JB> (2) This question was received by HP's language support organization JB> during the week of July 4th, and was answered early this week. JB> JB> (3) The question was forwarded to language support by HP's on-line JB> response center, which has maintained daily contact with you JB> or your manager since the question came to their attention. It sounds as though Dan's question took a long time to get to language support, but was answered quickly once it did (after his posting, presumably, though that's no doubt coincidence). JB> We take our reputation for fine service very seriously, and are anxious JB> to solve your problems as quickly as we learn about them. ... There is a remarkable contrast between the HP side and the Apollo Division here. We've been complaining bitterly about service problems over in comp.sys.apollo for weeks, and very little has been heard from HP employees there (which is not to say I'm not grateful to the exceptions). But here's the first HP customer with a complaint I can remember for quite some time, and immediately there's a detailed response. I note that the company's newly launched range is called the "HP Apollo 9000 Series 400", and that its sales literature gives Domain/OS equal weight to HP/UX, and the Apollo DN10000 as much prominence as some existing high-end HP machine. This confirms HP's strong commitment to maintaining the Apollo Division and allowing it to flourish: I applaud it. But unfortunately this does not seem to be borne out at present in customer services. In my opinion, the staff and resources available for support of Apollos and Domain/OS are not proportionate to those on the HP/UX side. Well, I'm very glad that HP/UX customers are getting good support, because it shows what the company is capable of, and what we should be getting for our Apollos too. I believe -- or at least fervently hope -- that HP will correct the situation when we ask them to in the "netpower" open letter. (Draft 2 is slowly nearing readiness.) The consequence, however, is that the open letter should be written from the point of view of *Apollo* customers, since we're the ones suffering. There'll be some changes to the letter along these lines, and maybe discussion should move back into comp.sys.apollo. I'd still be very glad to see support and/or signatures from any HP-machine customers who sympathize, or who would like HP to provide them even better service by making effective use of the Internet. Sorry to add to an already long posting, but Jimmy Benjamin makes a last point I wish to take up as it illustrates yet another Apollo service problem. JB> You may also be interested in our upcoming release 4.0 of HP Common Lisp, JB> which supports CLOS, a tree-shaker, and more. It's already out on HP's JB> Apollo Division platforms, and will be out soon on the 9000's. ... As an Apollo customer with an upgrade contract for Lisp I am indeed interested, as this is the first I've heard of it and I have not received my upgrade (in fact I very rarely seem to receive upgrades). We're not big Lisp users, but some people like it, and we're still stuck on version 2.20 (the one that broke at Domain/OS SR10.2). When was the Apollo version released? How many Apollo customers get prompt automatic upgrades of their software under contract? -- Jim Richardson Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Internet: jimr@maths.su.oz.au ACSNET: jimr@maths.su.oz FAX: +61 2 692 4534
rer@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Rob Robason) (07/19/90)
These comments are absolutely my own and in no way reflect HP's
position:
I think that the need to provide some sort of high speed link between
our support customers and our support organization is self evident. HP
has a long standing tradition of good support, and we are consistently
ranked in the highest eshelons in this regard. But we are not so naive
as to think that we need not improve to keep our leadership position,
nor that we do not have problems to iron out.
Neither are we so naive as to think that, no matter how good our system,
we will not have isolated failures, nor customers that are never
satisfied. So I presume here that we should talk about the general
case, not the exception, and grant that there will still be an
occasional letter to John Young (HP's President and CEO) when a customer
thinks we've done them wrong.
I think a couple of non-trivial stumbling blocks stand in the way of
HP's use of the net for support purposes:
1) The commercial (i.e. not for gain) use of the internet is
apparently forbidden. Without wishing to cast dispersion on any of
our competition, HP is not a company that will knowingly violate
this policy. Work to change, yes, but not violate.
Do not look to HP to take this issue lightly. For example, if HP
entered a support contract with a customer that called for us to
provide support via the internet, then was prevented from performing
consistent with that contract by some legal action that prevented
such use of the net, we would not only be possibly liable for
damages to that customer, but we would also have a customer
satisfaction problem, exclusive of the legal aspects.
While small companies may get away with basing their whole support
system on the net, when a company the size of HP steps in and does
the same, they draw a lot more attention and are more likely to
bring cries of foul-play from competitors, gateways and net purists.
2) It doesn't take a genius or an insider to figure out that about 1/5
to 1/4 of HP's computer revenues are from support contracts. For a
$12 billion company, that's not something you treat lightly. I'm
sure the folks in support are wrestling with how to provide these
services on a public network to a restricted set of potential users
(i.e. those who've purchased support contracts). It wouldn't make
sense to give away to some what you're charging others $2 Billion
for, you wouldn't sell many contracts on those terms.
3) There is an incredibly intricate support organization in place to
support HP's miriad products from countless divisions in multiple
business sectors. A major accomplishment has been the ability to
provide this support in a mostly consistent way to customers to hide
the fragmentation behind the scenes. A change such as support via a
public network would require significant coordination between lots
of HP entities, many of whom have very different goals. Such
coordination isn't easy even in small groups, and takes time to meet
everyones needs and fit everyones schedule.
4) I've learned that before we do something for customers, we have to
prove its value and workability to ourselves, the cost to implement
such a change is too great to accept a high risk of failure. I see
signs from the lab side, where I fix defects and deliver patches to
our support folks, that some of the things we need are coming
together. I see our turn around time for Customer/Response-Center
submitted Service-Requests (defects), for HP-UX commands at least,
getting shorter by orders of magnitude. I'm encouraged by this, and
hope that in the not-to-distant-future our customers on support
contract will start seeing the results in the form of better turn
around on there defect reports.
I'm a strong advocate of network accessable support. Having copied a
few kernels over 1200 Baud uucp over the years, I revel in the
networking we have in place today in HP. I also sense that the demand
exemplified in these discussions and elsewhere is not falling on deaf
ears.
As an aside, I wouldn't hold my breath for any free support though, I
don't think that's in the future. Any network patch system you see,
you'll only see if you pay for it.
Rob "My $2 Billion worth" Robasonrmf@media.uucp (Roger Fujii) (07/24/90)
jimr@maths.su.oz.au (Jim Richardson) writes: >By the way, has anyone anywhere ever received a reply to an APR emailed to >the address apr_cs_admin@apollo.hp.com given in the mkapr manual page? Or >do they just ignore Australian ones? I got a response back in 4 months (whee...). However, they are persistant. We still get APR confirmations of reports we made over a year ago... >The consequence, however, is that the open letter should be written from the >point of view of *Apollo* customers, since we're the ones suffering. There'll ^^^^^^^^^ And how!!!! >be some changes to the letter along these lines, and maybe discussion should >move back into comp.sys.apollo. I'd still be very glad to see support and/or >signatures from any HP-machine customers who sympathize, or who would like HP >to provide them even better service by making effective use of the Internet. Personally, I would like to see more TECHNICAL documentation on these things. Apollo has drowned us with user-type manuals, but all of these stop real short when you are trying to do ANYTHING technical (this is ESPECIALLY irking with Apollos since so much of the system's inner workings are done by 'magic'). -- Roger Fujii - Media Cybernetics Phone: (301)495-3305 Internet: rmf%media@uunet.uu.net UUCP: {uunet,hqda-ai}!media!rmf
wayne@dsndata.uucp (Wayne Schlitt) (07/24/90)
In article <5570451@hpfcdc.HP.COM> rer@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Rob Robason) writes: > These comments are absolutely my own and in no way reflect HP's > position: always a safe thing to assume... > [ ... ] > 2) It doesn't take a genius or an insider to figure out that about 1/5 > to 1/4 of HP's computer revenues are from support contracts. For a > $12 billion company, that's not something you treat lightly. I'm > sure the folks in support are wrestling with how to provide these > services on a public network to a restricted set of potential users > (i.e. those who've purchased support contracts). It wouldn't make > sense to give away to some what you're charging others $2 Billion > for, you wouldn't sell many contracts on those terms. > > [ ... ] > As an aside, I wouldn't hold my breath for any free support though, I > don't think that's in the future. Any network patch system you see, > you'll only see if you pay for it. > a minor point first: if HP/APOLLO made patches available via the internet and anonymous uucp, then we _would_ be paying for it. we just wouldnt be paying HP for it. nothing is free. the same would be true for questions answered in news/notes... anyway, i think hp may be penny wise and pound foolish on this. you cant look at things simply in terms of how much money you will bring in for doing it, you must look at the over all picture. saying that giving limited support to people via news and making patches available through some sort of ftp will mean people wont buy support contracts is silly. we have a support contract so that we get major software updates and updates to our manuals. we call the support center when we need immediate help that we can not answer internally. you must look at how much providing these services will cost you vs. how much you will eventually gain. the cost would be fairly low. the gains would admittedly be hard to measure, but they would definitely be there. there are other things that hp gives away for "free". before the sale questions, help to various user groups, discounts to software developers and universities just to name a few. all of these are penny foolish and pound wise. the net does not give you all the services that a support contract does, but a support contract doesnt give all the services that the net does either. -wayne