blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV (Bates TAD/HRNAB ms294 x2601) (02/28/89)
1. Has to work before shipment? Must be NEW SGI concept.
2.-3. I'll agree with those.
4. Maybe
5. Correct documentation? What's that?
6. Quality?! Service? I hope these have finally been adopted.
7. Reasonable cost, since when. YOU DON'T have to sell the
hardware, just charge us for the software. I hate expesive
middle men.
SGI could learn a few things , correction a lot, from the
microcomputer industry, concerning add on equipment and
other things.
--
Brenthelman@isl.Stanford.EDU (Jim Helman) (03/07/89)
In article <8902281549.AA03342@aero4.larc.nasa.gov> blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV (Bates TAD/HRNAB ms294 x2601) writes: > > 5. Correct documentation? What's that? > > 6. Quality?! Service? I hope these have finally been adopted. > > SGI could learn a few things , correction [sic] a lot, from the > microcomputer industry, concerning add on equipment and > other things. Easy there. If you think SGI is bad, maybe you should look around a bit. The SUN hotline takes a week to get back to you. SGI's hotline usually returns calls within the hour. We've even had an SGI field engineer come out at 6:30 on a Friday evening because we needed the machine for the weekend. As for the documentation, it's better than most and improving. Just compare the G Graphics Library Manual with the newer GT Graphics Library Manual. Sure sometimes you get a brainless person or a neophyte on the hotline who wastes half an hour of your time reading man pages to him/herself on the phone. And sometimes SGI can't supply working replacement parts, such as the latest processor board, in a timely fashion. But overall, SGI does better than any other company of its size that I've dealt with. Jim Helman Department of Applied Physics P.O. Box 10494 Stanford University Stanford, CA 94309 (jim@thrush.stanford.edu) (415) 723-4940
blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV (Bates TAD/HRNAB ms294 x2601) (03/07/89)
Your right about SUN. I called them 2 weeks ago, and still no answer. It seems to me that there are VERY FEW companies out there that care about their customers. What every happened to people trying their best to do their best? There are a few people out there, but they don't seem to be in management. I have run into a couple people at SGI that try to be helpful, they're not all bad. -- Brent L. Bates NASA-Langley Research Center M.S. 294 Hampton, Virginia 23665-5225 (804) 864-2854 E-mail: blbates@aero4.larc.nasa.gov or blbates@aero2.larc.nasa.gov
madd@adt.UUCP (jim frost) (03/07/89)
>> SGI could learn a few things , correction [sic] a lot, from the >> microcomputer industry, concerning add on equipment and >> other things. > >Easy there. If you think SGI is bad, maybe you should look around a >bit. The SUN hotline takes a week to get back to you. This is true, and if you have a real problem they'll bounce you around a LOT. Once I even got a message from someone about "my SO" (service order), which wasn't at all useful since I have (even still) about five active ones. Better than that, Sun shipped the 386i version of the 4.0 developer's kit without even RUNNING the debugger; the thing absolutely refused to work on any core, complaining about "bad text addresses". Even my worst experiences with SGI software pale against such incompetence. >As for the documentation, it's better than >most and improving. Just compare the G Graphics Library Manual with >the newer GT Graphics Library Manual. Yes, the newer are certainly better, although we've found that many functions are ambiguously documented; you actually have to play with them to figure out some specifics. Again, there is much worse out there! Basically I'm impressed with how fast SGI responds to their customers. Look at how fast the 4Sight system has matured! If everyone responded so fast, my job would be a lot easier. jim frost madd@bu-it.bu.edu