schwartz@cs.swarthmore.edu (Scott Schwartz) (08/15/88)
In article <276@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >In article <19709@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> mudd-j@pike.cis.ohio-state.edu (John R. Mudd) writes: >>In article <269@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >>>In article <670025@hpclscu.HP.COM> shankar@hpclscu.HP.COM (Shankar Unni) writes: >>>:Product quality is usually priority number 1 >>>Have you ever used VM/CMS? >>but I *liked* VM/CMS from a user point-of-view. > >I can see your point of view, I mean, 80-column records and tape drives >I'm talking about ordinary user-level programs written in PL/I being able >to crash a user's virtual machine and trash a virtual disk on the way. Not just ordinary programs do this, either. Happens all the time with ISPF or SQL; applications that you know IBM cares a lot about and expects a whole range of users to mess with. (At least the crashing part. I haven't lost a mini disk yet.) > ... In recent releases of vm/cms there were only a limited number of files that could be spooled at a time, something like 10K. I've heard of instances where a 3090 with a bitnet connection to a unix site crashed and could not be rebooted because there were too many files (usenet articles, probably :-) waiting to be shipped over. I'm told that this has been fixed. One claim that IBM loving friends of mine have made is that on site service is very good. If true, this could be a good selling point. Big sites worry a lot about maintainance. >And so on. IBM have many strengths, and VM/CMS software >is no more flaky than a lot of other stuff, but it is nothing special >either. Very likely true. -- Scott Schwartz <schwartz@swarthmore.edu> <psuvax1!vu-vlsi!swatsun!schwartz>
jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson) (08/29/88)
> One claim that IBM loving friends of mine have made is that on site > service is very good. If true, this could be a good selling > point. Big sites worry a lot about maintainance. IBM probably sees to it that you NEED that support by developing hardware and software that is either unreliable or unapproachable by anyone except trained individuals. Guess where you get the training. I seem to recall that at one time you were *required* by your sales contract to maintain IBM representatives at your site for hardware and software support. Fortunately those bad old days are past. -- John T. Nelson UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn Advanced Decision Systems Internet: jtn@potomac.ads.com 1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209-2401 (703) 243-1611 Shar and Enjoy!
barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin) (08/30/88)
In article <6855@potomac.ads.com> jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson) writes: >IBM probably sees to it that you NEED that support by developing >hardware and software that is either unreliable or unapproachable by >anyone except trained individuals. Where have you been for the last thirty years? IBM has one of the best reputations in the industry for their hardware. As for self-service, how many computer vendors actually allow sites to do their own servicing? I doubt that there are many mainframe systems that are serviceable by untrained personnel. Field service is a fact of life in the large-system world. And IBM's field service organization also has a good rep. Of course, I wouldn't ever want to have to use IBM systems much, but that is because of the software. Barry Margolin Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar