IBM Hardware vs Software Support

[Tom Pellitieri]

On Monday evening, we had IBM Hardware support on site to replace our tape drive (this is drive #7 for this 49 month old machine).  During the reboot, the system failed to mount our UniData volume group!  When we tried to manually mount the device, the system complained about a corrupt superblock and told us to run a full fsck.

The on-site tech told us we had to call Software Support to get help with this, since he didn't know how to use the tool!  I spent nearly 30 minutes explaining the problem to the call center person (who did not speak English clearly) before I could speak with a software tech.  I then had to re-explain the problem to the software tech, since the call center person didn't record enough of the information I provided.

I see several problems with this:

1) Why doesn't the Hardware Tech have direct access to Software Support??

2) Why does the call center insist on getting all the technical details, when:

• a. they don't understand the technical information
• b. they don't pass the information on

What should have been a five minute fix wound up being nearly a 60 minute call.

Am I the only one who's had these kind of encounters with IBM???

[precisonline]

I haven't had that kind of an encounter with IBM, but then again I rarely trust any organization that size to actually "help".  I have had a similar encounter with the Redmond Death Star and a couple of network equipment companies and basically haven't wanted to talk to "support" since.  At the risk of sounding like a commercial, I think it may very well be this self-sufficiency that's kept this little software company afloat all these years.

I did run into an issue with IBM when I became a SB+ var; the paperwork one had to fill out was unbelievably long and complex, and if you don't have a full time contract administrator it's next to impossible to buy anything from IBM.  In fact, in the single year I was a VAR I never received any of the free software I was promised, probably because I refused to spend a week filling out all the paperwork.  When the year elapsed and was given the opportunity to fill out more awful paperwork to maintain my VAR status, I respectfully declined.

People wonder why this industry doesn't flourish, and then you have a sales organization that artificially manufacturers every reason in the world to not sell their product and a support organization that passes the buck so long you - the customer - want to die; What I don't understand is how they haven't killed the whole industry yet?  Make no mistake about it, I really dig the Multivalue technology. but so many vendors in this industry seem to be doing everything possible to kill themselves and take us all with them, I'll continue to keep my eyes wide open when it comes to our future.