Where do you get support and why?

[Masters, Gary E]

Gary E. Masters
Librarian (Systems)
CDRH - FDA
(301) 827-6893 

	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Dan Lester [SMTP:dan at riverofdata.com]
	Sent:	Monday, June 11, 2001 2:00 PM
	To:	Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:	[WEB4LIB] Re: The beginning of the end for the
Netscape Browser???

	Saturday, June 09, 2001, 5:16:38 PM, you wrote:
	>> I'm not interested in engaging in any browser, OS, or platform
	>> warfare.  My point is simply that many organizations, whether
profit
	>> or nonprofit, want a commercial product that has support.

	RLGI> The implicit assumptions here are 1) that commercial products
are
	RLGI> supported, and 2) that free ones are not.


	All:

	I have three points:

1)	In the past, when I paid the most for support by buying a very
expensive product and paying for a service agreement to answer questions the
company would not answer, the support was the worst.  (It was a computer
network program from Utah.)
2)	The best support I ever got was from Word Perfect.
3)	My experience with HP support has been bad, but problems have been
so infrequent that I don't really care.  And when I have a problem and
really work the web site, I can get answers.  I just don't try to call. 

So support is really a relative question.  The best world is when you don't
ever need it.  Next best, is a good  place to post questions and where some
will take time to answer, and the other end of the spectrum is when you pay
a good price and also for add on support and they still don't support.  The
question of paying for software or getting it free is not relevant.  

Sounds like quality control to me.  Do it right and you don't have to fix
it.  But there are times when you need new drivers and load new applications
to support the browser and need to ask a question.  

Regards,

Gary

Gary E. Masters
Librarian (Systems)
CDRH - FDA
(301) 827-6893