begin oe_protect.scr
Roy Culley <rgc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> begin risky.vbs
> <kdkr04-tgt.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> Mark Kent <mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>> begin oe_protect.scr
>> ed <ed@xxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>
>>> this is top news. although forums worked well, it's friends helping
>>> friends. official support could be a bit tough on sun. but it is a
>>> little odd, i suspect it could be just to find out what people
>>> really want that oo.org doesnt offer so that they can promote it in
>>> star office.
>>
>> Perhaps, but this is still about choice. You don't /have/ to use
>> Sun's offering, do you, you can merely choose to. This is the big
>> advantage of open-source - you get a real market in support.
>
> Forums, mailing lists, etc provide excellent support for CSS and OSS.
> Want support for Solaris? Subscribe to sun-managers. Want support
> for Checkpoint FW-1 visit phoneboys web site.
>
> Using OSS gives you better support full stop. It is getting managers
> to realise this that is the hard part. What use is a support contract
> when the vendor has no solution? This applies so much to MS wrt
> security vulnerabilites. Disable activex, don't visit untrusted web
> sites (how pathetic can it get), ...
>
> The support for OSS is far superior to anything CSS providers can give
> in general. What the suits are scared of is that there is no support
> contract involved with most OSS support. Little do they know that
> their expensive support contracts for CSS buys them next to nothing
> most of the time. They are learning. It is a matter of education like
> most of the worlds problems.
>
You're quite right - but the problem is our endemic blame culture. Very
senior people want to know that if things go wrong, they'll have
"someone to blame". Suppliers are very well aware of this huge
character flaw in the culture of most organisations, and most senior
managers; basically, it's a complete and total aversion to risk. This
is a huge problem in business, as business is /all about/ being rewarded
for taking risks. The net result is that suppliers are able to charge
vast sums of money on the basis that they're "sharing the risk" with the
customer. As you say, what most of them fail to recognise is that there
is no risk sharing involved, and contracts are written such that the
customer will have to keep paying for everything, forever. This is the
lock-in aspect.
The reality is that when things go wrong, as they inevitably do, a
supplier will likely see it as a weak moment during which they can make
some more cash, and will be checking over the very carefully written
support contract to make absolutely sure that there's nothing in there
which makes them liable in any way (in spite of the claims to the
contrary - just look at MS's EULA for a good example of this).
The actual "blame" will go downwards and sideways in organisations,
probably trying to find the person who made the initial deployment
decision (wow - someone who took a risk - why are they employed here?),
or sideways to eg., operations (see, they just don't operate it
properly), or perhaps to procurement (they didn't work a good enough
deal to avoid risk for us).
All of the energy is, of course, a total waste. Merely harnessing
enough to support the internal support guys to fix the problem, and
enough to negotiate with affected end customers is all that is required.
As you say, support which actually works is /far more use/ than a
contract which has been put in place as a direct result of blame
culture.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
Save yourself from the 'Gates' of hell, use Linux." -- like that one.
-- The_Kind @ LinuxNet
|
|
