Why redhat will never get another dime of my money.

[Larry D Sorensen]

I don't have quite as large a shop as some people, but I have expereinced
extremely slow support from RH Support. First of all, it is hard to get
ahold of a live person. Then they take a long time to respond to
problems. I like the product, but their support could use some revamping.

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 09:28:58 -0600 Ed Wilts <ewilts at ewilts.org> writes:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 08:30:55AM -0500, Julie Felton wrote:
> > I can't speak much about RH tech support as I haven't used them 
> often
> > enough to form a personal opinion, but I hope (keeping my fingers
> > crossed) that they're responsive when I need them for something
> > critical.  I will say that I've heard numerous horror stories 
> about
> > their support from several people over the years.  
> 
> Red Hat has (I think) over 500,000 subscriptions.  You've probably 
> heard
> ocmplaints from 10 or 20 customers.  It's simple human nature to
> complain loud and clear when things don't go your way but to not 
> say
> anything when you're happy.
> 
> There are multiple pieces to support and web/phone support is just 
> one
> of those pieces.  The few times I've needed them, Red Hat tech 
> support
> has done a good job.
> 
> On the other hand, I use RHN and pull down RHEL patches frequently 
> and
> Red Hat has *NEVER* let me down (Fedora, yes, but not RHEL).  This 
> is a
> piece that most people forget about when they consider their 
> support
> subscription - the updates are typically more important than the 
> phone
> or web support.
> 
> >If you're going to pay $10k/year or more for support, they *better* 
> be good.
> 
> I've gotten better support out of Red Hat for well under $10K per 
> year
> than I have for some software that costs us over $100K.
> 
> > Regarding software quality (or even support quality)...
> > 
> > Personally, I understand that nothing is perfect; and just because 
> an
> > app works flawlessly on one system, that doesn't mean it's good 
> for all
> > environments.  HOWEVER, customers should have some options.  As 
> it
> > stands, we spend sometimes hundreds of thousands for software, and 
> if it
> > doesn't work in our environment or if it doesn't do what the sales 
> rep
> > and "demo" claims, we're left with a plastic disk and an unused 
> license.
> 
> Been there, done that.  Don't like it either.
> 
> >  Businesses seem to have no course of action for bad service, bad
> > software, or snake oil.
> 
> How many people have successfully sued Microsoft for allowing a 
> security
> vulnerability that caused them to be infected by a virus?  I'd bet 
> the
> number is 0 whereas millions of people have been affected.
> 
> > I suppose I have a real problem paying out cash to be someone's 
> bug
> > catcher - and then more for the patches  - and then more to 
> resolve
> > problems that the patches create.  It's not just RH either; I've 
> had
> > LOTS of issues with MS too (big surprise).  
> 
> And HP and EMC and Oracle and a lot of other big players.  We've 
> been
> burned by them all.
> 
> Red Hat has been one of the better companies to work with out there, 
> at
> least for me and I deal with the "big boys" (see above) on a daily 
> basis.
> 
> -- 
> Ed Wilts, RHCE
> Mounds View, MN, USA
> mailto:ewilts at ewilts.org
> Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program
> 
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