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SCW Customer Service Article

Volume IIEntry 38 of 39 in 20141 min read3 comments ↓

Written by Gloria Metrick on . Published as written. It may not reflect how these systems work today.

My latest SCW (Scientific Computing World) article has been published. It just came across, earlier today, in the SCW (Scientific Computing World) notice. To read it:
http://www.scientific-computing.com/news/news_story.php?news_id=2600

Don't forget that this is part of the series of articles that is supposed to be "controversial." So, if you have any disagreements with any part of the article, respond to SCW to tell them why you disagree. They might be disappointed if they don't get any push back on these.

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/

The conversation

3 comments from 2 people, December 16 to December 18, 2014. Gloria replied once.

  1. dsdesc

    I didn't see a way to reply or comment....

    2 quick comments:
    - I remember when software was expensive enough ($495 a copy) that the company could afford free tech support. I recall the "hold jockeys" of WordPerfect, spinning tunes and, in between, giving a "traffic report" of how long the wait was for tech support for each feature and platform. This model collapses when the software costs $4.95.
    - I've told many a salesman, "You get the first sale. Your support tech gets every other one." I've kept products because of the tech support - and abandoned others for the same reason. So I've been on the other side, where I was willing to pay (or have my company pay) "extra" to get superior support.

  2. John H. Jones

    This is not controversial. Software is not free (even free open source). Companies that make software must monetize it one way or another. There are many monetization models.

    Labor is not free. It is the most important and most expensive aspect of building, buying and maintaining and supporting software. An all you can eat software support plan is crazy and at my company, we won't do it and we say that right up front. If that is not good to hear, then we don't really care because we do not give away unlimited support. We do provide unlimited warranty for those under contract. Bugs in the COTS should be fixed and the customer who has paid for an extended warranty is entitled to those fixes. It is in our best interests as a software company to assure a high degree of quality so that there are as few bugs as possible.

    Those companies that give away free, unlimited support will either take a bath in losses or they will not provide support as expected. It is better to be up front and say what the rules of the game are and then let the customer decide. As a vendor we are fine either way they choose. If there are software companies that are successful with an all you can eat plan, then more power to them. They will obviously become the only game in town eventually and will take over the world and all others will go away (obviously I do not really believe that or I would be all scared of the future). The same thing goes for Open Source. It is free but it hardly poses a threat, in fact we have embraced it and pair it with our own products on a regular basis.

    The software world is complex by its very nature. This complexity calls for highly skilled and valuable human resources and they do not work for free and so things cost money (even in India and China, just in case you think outsourcing is the answer).

    1. Gloria MetrickAuthor

      One misconception that some customers still have is that Open Source is free. It's not free. It costs money to build applications with it and costs money to support those applications.

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