VPIX and other SCO complaints

[Tony Field]

I have notices a number of *strong* complaints about the quality of the
Vpix system and of SCO hotline service.  Although I agree with some
of the technical complaints, I do have a different opinion about SCO & Vpix.

1. When I decided to try a DEMO version of Vpix, SCO informed me that 
   Vpix should not be considered a *perfect* dos interface for all
   applications. It should be used whenever reasonably well behaved dos
   programmes MUST be run in a Xenix environment. For those applications
   that I tried, amongst which are LOTUS, WordPerfect 4.2, and a few
   compilers, I was completely happy with the way that Vpix handled the
   system. Certainly some *poorly behaved* programmes caused problems.

2. I was VERY pleased with how well Vpix handles the system console and
   attached terminals. I am pretty sure that Vpix handles terminal i/o
   by some "memory/page fault" mechanism with a bunch of associated
   computations to determine where the data is to be placed on the
   target terminal. This is slow/expensive but I am impressed with how fast
   it does run on a time-share system.
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In article <5980005 at hplsla.HP.COM> jeffh at hplsla.HP.COM (Jeff Harrell) writes:

>       1) Support- I do not like being placed on hold for 15-30
>                   minutes only to be told I can get an "appointment"
>                   in two to three days. It's been my experience that
>                   the person on the other end of the line ( the one
>                   that calls back in a couple of days ) knows less
>                   about VP/ix than I do.

3. I have found that hot-line support is usually excellent.  The analysts
   are generally competent.  On occasion, I have had to place a second
   call to get assistance from a more "senior" analyst with better knowledge.
   
4. The SCO person who 'screens' your call determines the analyst to whom
   you talk to. The better you describe your problem, the better he/she
   is able to direct the problem to the appropriate level of analyst.
   (I think SCO has 4 different levels of skill in the analysts:  the
   'screener' directs the problem to the analyst based on YOUR description
   of the problem - therefore describe the problem ACCURATELY).

5. If you need FAST answers, then request an EXPRESS call.  This generally
   gives you "immediate" access to an analyst for "short/critical" questions
   needing no more than 5 minutes of analyst time. This has saved my
   skin a couple of times when I have had to re-build a totally
   corrupted system after major power problems.  If I loose my temper because
   I must wait for 6 minutes before I can talk to the analyst, I always
   remember that it is SCO's dime that pays for the long-distance call,
   not mine (however, I did pay for SoftCare - so it really is my dime).

   One improvement SCO could make is to have a special SUPER-CRITICAL
   call to assist people who are attempting to rebuild a production system.
   It is totally unacceptable to have 15 accountants or 20 people
   in the word processing pool down for more than a short while.  A
   call "returned tomorrow" under these circumstances is of NO VALUE.

6. I am unhapppy with the fact that I get a 30 minute appointment, possibly
   "tomorrow" to chat with an analyst.
   
   A friend of mine has had Xenix for 2 years: he indicates that this is
   a "recent" phenomena (within the past year) probably due to the
   dramatic increase in popularity of Xenix. He used to get immediate
   response to ALL of his problems - including direct contact with the
   Xenix development staff. Such is the price of popularity.

   He also indicated that e-mail used to be "faster" than voice:  however
   there is now a bottleneck in the e-mail response.  ouch..
   
7. I do not use Vpix:  I prefer to use a dedicated DOS machine rather than
   mix up my environment.
   
8. Another (for me) serious problem:  Vpix and CGI do not like to co-exist.
   SCO is working on this.   

These are my OPINIONS and reflections on my experiences.  Since I am my
own boss, these also reflect the option of my boss.
I hope I am not in the minority.....

                           tony......
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|  Tony Field                       ..alberta!calgary!xenlink!ajfcal!tony
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