In another post regarding ODBC issues with VS2005 Beta, Tony has taken
us to task for not reporting the issue directly to RD. I'd like some
clarification on that point.

I'm basically an end-user. We purchased our software almost 20 years ago
from a VAR with the intention of modifying it in house ourselves. We've
spent 20 years doing so. So we have no ongoing relationship with our
original VAR. (In fact, our original VAR moved off RD to Universe over
10 years ago. But we've stayed with RD and D3.) So we have our D3
maintenance contract with another VAR who basically just supports us on
OS issues - printer issues, D3 error logs we may get, etc. In other
words, our present VAR has no software relationship with us. He is
running his own business - he's just a funnel for our maintenance contract.

So if I have a D3 OS issue, I call my present VAR. But if I am
experimenting with ODBC on VS2005 beta, I can't call him and ask him
about it. It's far removed from his agenda. And I can't tell him to
please ask RD, because he doesn't have the foggiest notion what I'm
talking about. So now I'm left dangling.

What I have always done in such a situation is post my question to CDP,
where the universe of MV people have been so kind to share their
knowledge and help me solve my problem.

I've also posted items to RDs private forum, hoping that since it is
more D3-oriented I would get more "focused" help from both RD internal
and external folks. I assumed that what is posted there is far more
"personal" to RD, would be free of RD "flames" and would therefore get
more genuine RD help. After all, we're "buddies", trying to resolve
issues quietly amongst friends.

But now Tony says I'm all wrong. I've got to report the problem head-on
to RD. No pussy-footing. No more 100 pound (45.4 kilogram) weakling.

So my question is - am I (as an end-user) supposed (allowed?) to go
directly to RD and ask them? Won't they ask me to go to my VAR first?
And if I tell them he doesn't have expertise in this, will it reflect
badly on him? And will they give me (an end-user) the same attention
they give a VAR, or am I an end-user headache to them?

In other words, what is my relationship, as an end-user, to RD support?
I had always thought they were my support of last resort to get my
system up and running in a crisis. Can I directly ask them anything I want?

Has anyone else had any experience with RD in a similar situation? Have
they been helpful?

General Response:

Have the VAR call RD and tell them that they(the VAR) can
not support <X> and that the end-user needs direct support
for <X> from now on. In this case, it's ODBC. You will still
need for the VAR to contact RD upon each new trouble call,
but you won't have to go back and forth between the two to
get an answer. It's not the quickest support trip, but it
will save you from repeated frustrating discussions with RD
support and your VAR. I've been there.

If the VAR can't support something, then it's RD's duty to
help the end-user directly. They prefer not to answer
100,000 general support calls a day(I can't blame them),
which is what you're always forced through a knowledgable
VAR. The VAR still has to initiate each support call, but
once it's passed over they(VAR) can drop out of the scene
until a VAR-knowledgable issue comes up.

If the problem is severe and reproducible, then get a
support case prepared before you talk to RD. Provide the
case data in an easy to digest format. If RD can reproduce
the problem easily, then you'll be on your way to happiness
in very little time. Too many people spend too much time
complaining about problems and not enough time figuring out
why their problem even remotely exists. In many cases,
including myself a few times, the end-user jumps to
conclusions before any kind of research is done. Some people
just don't have the know-how to do the research, but you'd
be surprised at how much help a copy(when the problem
happens) of WHICH (CA, WHERE (AZ, LIST-LINES, and a LISTU
can be. You may be able to spot consistant changes in these
when the problem occurs. Regardless, providing that upfront
will help RD support by giving them a decent amount of state
info that they don't have to go digging for.

Glen
http://mvdevcentral.com

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SH,
Raining Data has THREE levels of Software Maintenance Agreements (SMA):

a. Gold, 5x8 through the VAR
b. Platinum, 7x24 through the VAR
c. Platinum DIRECT. The VAR gets less discount on the maintenance, and
the end user can call Raining Data directly without involving the VAR
at all. In other words, Raining Data is the First Line of support for
the end user.

For the end user, the SMA price is the same for both (b) and (c).
Direct calls to Raining Data are not available for (a) Gold SMA.

Also note that, for "large installations with many users", Raining Data
has the bad habit of taking on SMA directly, thus completely shutting
out the VAR.

Maybe (c) Platinum DIRECT is a good solution for you.

Dave Weaver, Weaver Consulting



SH wrote:

SH,
Raining Data has THREE levels of Software Maintenance Agreements (SMA).
The third one is not well advertised ....
1. Gold, 5x8 -- support calls through the VAR
2. Platinum, 7x24 -- support calls through the VAR
3. Platinum DIRECT, 7x24 -- support calls direct to Raining Data.

Both Platinum and Platinum DIRECT are the same cost to the end-user.
The difference is that the VAR gets less discount on the Platinum
DIRECT plan.

Maybe Platinum Direct is what you need since you do your own
programming and do not depend on your VAR very much for those duties.

Also note that for "very large end-users with lots of seats", Raining
Data has a very bad habit of taking the SMA direct, thus cutting the
VAR out completely. This should be a no-no, but they do it anyway.

Dave Weaver, Weaver Consulting

I think there is a good point here. And i think that there is not only
a RD problem. I think RD has a big problem in the quality of many of
their VARs.

I understand Tony. Some of us has worked a lot with D3. we have spent
many, many hours of testing, investigating, etc.

Originally people like Tony or myself, used to think that our job was
very good for the VARS. We can help them a lot and then they can help
their customers. We try to be an I&D&I department for the VARS.

Some years later, we discover that the VARS do not spend a dollar on
it. They told us, "how great you are", but we do not earn a peny. I
have talk of this with Tony, because it happens to me some years before
it happens to Tony.

In 1993 i began with this. I wanted to work only for VARS, not for end
users. Sometimes i went to end users with the VAR. Today, i work 95% of
time with end users, and have an agreement with a couple of VARS.

In that time i remeber CPD, i remeber Tony, Mark, Doug. There were the
time of AP. I worked a lot with Via Systems with Winlink. I make demos
with beta versions of W95 and AP and Winlink and PicLan. Then i began
with the first D3 Linux Version and ODBC. Tony and Mark help me a lot
from CPD. And Doug either. And people from Via Systems too. And Sam
Anderson from Repton (today EasyCo with Doug) too.
I worked a lot with DYSSA (the spanish dealer of RD). I wrote techs to
all the VARs in Spain. Even devoloping with Grapick.

But, at the end, i earn my money with end users, not vars. And i
understand Tony. Do you know how you feel when you solve many problems
in CDP or RD Forums to many potential customers and at the end of the
month you have earn 0 dollars? And you know you can help a lot.

I only see a couple of solutions. RD (and all the rest of the MV
vendors) must change their way of selling, forgetting the VAR system or
they must ACTUALLY certificate their VARS.

F.I. for personal reasons i am now a little bit "out of date". I have
not worked with .net. I want to begin now. I can use PDP.NET. I can buy
it from DYSSA or any VAR in Spain, even from Manolo Beltran who was one
of the first devolopers of it. I can bye MV.NET from Jbase in England.
All these options are going to be the "cheaper" option.

But i do not know if i am going to use PDP.NET or MV.NET. I will use
the one Tony told me. And i will buy it to TONY, even when i must
IMPORT in europe it from USA when i can buy it in Europe. And i will
PAY Tony, not only the product, i do not care the product i want Tony's
knowledge, and it MUST cost me money.

Sorry to many VARS that works very well, I am sure they understand me.
So IMHO, work with a good VAR, not with a middle company with not added
value. And, IMHO again, Tony, good VARS, me do not have a big problem,
our problem is small, you have a BIG problem with 20 years of work
without support. But i understand you either. How can you find a good
VAR?

Sorry for my english in this "deep" topics, my language is Spanish

Joseba

P.S.
Sadly , today i see very similar posts than in 1995.

Glen is right ... chase the VAR. Report it to him via Email, and CC
support (AT) rainingdata (DOT) com every time you have to chase him up !

Now, I'm assming that you ARE paying support ? If not,forget it, but if
you are, then the VAR has a responsibility to at least report the issue
--> and if he doesn't know/have the knowledge, then as per Tony's
original post, you need to document your problems in detail

Damn, you people must be sick of seeing my name here, I know I am.

Too many points to cover. Please ask me to clarify where necessary.

- If you have questions about your relationship with RD, talk to RD.
Start with Sales - a phone call, not e-mail.

- Mark Allen at RD is not just the Technical Support Manager, he is
Director of Customer Service. He and I had a long personal chat many
months ago about this topic. He's very personable and dedicated to
helping his customer base. Years ago I wanted to start a Customer
Service department at RD, which (critically important) was separate
from Tech Support and which should be the voice of the customer within
the organization. Managment didn't want to hear about it. When Mark
came in he got the title, but no one but him inside or outside of the
company seems to understand the title because RD doesn't bother to
tell anyone about it. I blame this on poor marketing, not Mark or his
team. If you have questions or issues with the process, your status
with the company, etc, talk to Mark Allen.

- I've discussed a concept of split commissions with RD many times and
I'll briefly share it with you. Many VARs (D3, U2, jBASE, etc) know
their apps perfectly, know the DBMS OK, and know nothing about many of
the more technical aspects like sockets, XML, ODBC, web connectivity,
etc. I've proposed that VARs who get full DBMS and Support
commissions should take just the part that they earn for the DBMS, but
pass on the remaining commission and responsibility for Support to
another qualified agency. (This is part of my "collaborate or die"
theme.) I have this relationship with a few VARs now. They call me
for the stuff they don't want to deal with, I get some support money
plus I represent them to their end-users. The end-users are happy and
continue to pay their fees, the VARs look good, I get gigs, we're all
happy. There is potential for a break down when it comes to
negotiating how much specific services are worth. Also, because
companies like IBM and RD don't want to deal with split commission
accounting, I need to keep track of licenses so that I know how much
the VAR should be paying me for Support. Inherently this is a trust
relationship, so no one abuses it, but it's an intensive process to
maintain because. For reference, RD does approve of the model, they
just can't do the accounting, and I'm approved to call for support on
behalf of my client/VARs and their client/end-users.

- RD might not approve of this but here's another suggestion for sites
that really do know more than their VARs: The key technical person,
like Sholom in this case, can register as a Consultant with RD. This
entitles you to a small commission on Support fees paid to you by your
company, but most importantly you are entitled to call and e-mail RD
for Support. I think the only thing RD cares about is that they don't
want calls about an ODBC server hanging from someone who can just
barely spell ODBC. If you're a competent technician, you wrote the
code, you've done your due dilligence in testing, etc, they don't mind
talking to you, but you do need to somehow qualify from a business
perspective to make that call anyway.

- One of the things that RD lost when they disolved the Distributor
tier was the extra filter layer between VARs and RD Support. A
Distributor can provide technical support without being tied to a
business application, which in my mind is completely illogical anyway.
This situation would really help people like Sholom and his company.
The problem wasn't with the concept of distributorships, it was with
the implementation, and with the exception of excellent groups like
T-Data in Australia, I think the solution should have been to
re-organize the distributors, not get rid of the tier. Aside from
that I think the decision there was also in large part due to
financial motivations - get rid of the people taking big commissions
and deal with the flood of support calls. Big topic...

- From the time we started the RD e-mail forums (which was later
migrated to the web interface) we emphasized the point that the forums
were NOT a substitute for official support. Then and now there were
too many people who tried to get support without paying for it. And
more importantly to some, issues reported in a forum tend to get lost
because they are not brought into the official process. Comments made
in e-mail are not a part of the Support database, and this is why we
get RD saying "I've never heard of that" when we see rampant
discussions of some issues in CDP, e-mail, and web forums. If it's
not in the database no one there can look it up - they certainly
aren't going to Google for tech issues about their own products. so
again, a forum isn't the right place to look for Support - I know of
very few companies that provide official support in public forums.

- That said, a couple RD Support people are very good at monitoring
the Support forum and they do try to help as much as possible because
1) they know the people in there are paying customers, 2) they're
really conscientious about their products. In particular I'll cite
Robert Burke and JJ Strovink for really keeping an eye on the forum.
Note also that Mark Allen reads the RD forum, as do others. The point
here is that you DO get some professional attention when you post
issues to the forum, but if an issue requires real assistance you need
to call and ask for real official and dedicated help.

- For reference, I'm not saying anything new in my comments about
posting issues to forums, calling RD directly, filing action items,
etc. I've been singing that song here and elsewhere for about 10
years now. I even wrote an article in the old Pick Systems magazine
(Pick World or Dimensions, I forget) which explained the entire
process or calls, action items, prioritization, etc - for exactly the
reasons Sholom cites.

- I'm sorry for consuming so much bandwidth on the topic but it seems
the message never seems to sink in. And for reference, this really is
RD's business, and at some point I'll wise up and leave it to them to
explain how their system works.

Hope I didn't miss anything.
T



SH <shamada (AT) prupipe (DOT) com> wrote:

Tony,

Just wanted to add my 2 cents about why people might post problems here
rather than on the RD forums.

After reading about the RD forums here, I thought I would investigate, so I
wandered around their web site until I found the forums.

Okay - I need to sign up before I can post. I tried to sign up using the
numbers
from D3 that I bought from RD for one of my clients. They also pay annual
support fees. I thought surely that RD would approve them.

Well, that was not the case, I was summarily rejected with some nonsense
about the serial number not being valid or my not being valid for the serial
number or some such babble.

So, I do not ask questions on the Raining Data forums.

Larry Hazel

Larry, I'll present both sides of this.

On one side the RD forum is not for official Support, however it is a
focus group, so they validate registrations to ensure that people who
aren't even customers aren't wasting their time with flames or claims
of bugs that don't exist.

On the other side, it's like I said in one of my points: Either you or
your end-user should contact RD sales to ensure that you are
authorized to call for Support on one of their systems. When that's
done you should be able to get in there.

It's a valid process but if it's flawed then that's just a bad
implementation, not a bad idea. Take it up with the right people,
don't just go away mad. If I were there I'd check the failed
registrations to see if someone valid like yourself got rejected, and
I'd contact you to see what could be done. I don't think they have
any concept of this sort of pro-active service so I wouldn't expect it
from them. Once again, if you want to get something done, don't leave
everything to the vendor's initiative, take charge and make it happen.

Hey RD, if you're reading this, fix the damn process. Rather than
explaining your flaws and how people can get around them, I'm just
going to start suggesting that your clients start looking at jBASE.
You take care of them or someone else will.

My best,
Tony



"Homer L. Hazel" <hNoOmerlhANTI (AT) SPAMcox (DOT) net> wrote:

Joseba, it's good to see you posting again. I'm glad you are well.

You, of course are correct when it comes to VARs not wanting to spend money.
However, I think it is mostly from the thought that given enough time they
could probably figure it out themselves.

However, we have recently been working with Tony using his NebulaMail
product which has been working beautifully and his support is fantastic. If
anything Tony has been undercharging us.

Also, the relationship has expanded so that Tony is now helping us get our
Clinical Laboratory system on the web using FlashConnect. It is also going
extremely smoothly.

It would have taken us so much longer to figure all of this stuff out (we
probably would have just avoided it).

Let me tell you from experience that even (especially) VARs can make
extraordinary progress with relatively minor investments with people like
Tony and Joseba.

Give it a try.
Jeff