On Wednesday 02 May 2007 01:54, Silviu Marin-Caea wrote:
The reason I would purchase SLED, SLES is to receive world class tiered support, printed documentation, voice support, indemnification, etc.
You are kidding yourself with the support story. This just doesn't bring enough cash. I don't see people buy support if the product runs well. Novell would starve. It's a vicious circle that I don't know an escape for.
Not at all... Novell just hasn't figured it out yet...
... the idea of services and support does not imply that the product (SLED, SLES) does or does not work well. In fact they should work very well... and Novell should have tiered support offerings for it. Allow me to explain.
Just monitor the mailing lists... any of them... I monitor about 100 mailing lists for many different products (I monitor *all* of the SUSE lists) and I notice that there is a huge demand for support services that has *nothing* whatever to do with bugs or the product not working well... it has everything to do with people wanting to know HOW TO DO SOMETHING and not having enough time or skill to RTFM. --- and here is the big shocker for the Novell team... *they are willing to pay for it* !
Picture an ISSC (International SUSE Support Center). This center is staffed with hundreds of service personnel who work multiple layers (tiers) of support. 1st tier) installation support-- 30 days, voice, fax 2nd tier) bug report --free, fax, forum 3rd tier) general software support service contract annual --- fax, forum 4th tier) general software support service contract annual --- return call 5th tier) general software support service contract annual --- live voice
per call) general software support service --- 900 number, mintues rate
Now, picture prepackaged software distribution of SLED (SLES) (if it were me I'd try to solicit HP as the provider) with a desktop hot-link for software service contract with ISSC ... there can actually be several locations (mirrored servers, etc Germany, India, United Kingdom, United States) The folks who purchase HP or DELL preloaded machines are going to need support for all kinds of things ---- and they are willing to pay for this service through annual service contract ---- I know, I've seen it work at the IBM Support Centers for over twenty years.
Look at it this way... monitor the forums and find every time someone asked how to config grub to do this or that... or how do I adjust my video, or how can I compile a kernel, or how do I make DVD work, or whatever... and then picture them being able to purchase the right to ask those questions from a competant support representative (get the correct answer quickly through whatever tier at an appropriate price) and pay for the right to ask. Instead of being told to RTFM they get their answer and they pay the bill, or they pay for their service contract. As it is now folks pay hundreds of dollars for M$ products with limited support... but suppose instead that they pay limited dollars for the software and $150 dollars for an annual software support service contract from Novell... or Canonical... or ME... there are literally billions of questions to be answered, and millions of people willing to pay for those answers... think about it. I suggested the same thing to the education team and we now have a ttp mailing
On Wednesday 02 May 2007 15:58, M Harris wrote: list for SLA (school license agreement)customers. Maybe this could be a wing of the opensuse team that pays for itself through the 900 number model. maybe we all could be tested as an entrance to the team and be given a log in to what tier we qualify for and when we take a call we get paid a portion of the 900 number rates as well as an monthly paycheck from the support center contracts. if the contracts cost 150.00 per year and the 900 number brings in 1.50 a minute it still seems reasonable. -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Novell CNE 3\4\5 CLE \ NCE in training. http://en.opensuse.org/education --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org