Mandrake learning from Microsoft

[nfallon]

This was part of a Mandrake newsletter that I recceived:

Product News
----------------------------------------
New technical support plans are now available for IA64 architecture
(HP, Bull, IBM, etc.) in North America & Europe.

Description:
Technical support is accessible Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm for
the Mandrake Linux ProSuite Gold package on IA64.
Price: $4900 US (5500 Euros) for 10 incidents -- Level 1/Level 2/Level 3

Seems a little high to me.

Neil

[Aaron_Adams]

Does seem a little high, but it's likely large corporate incidents that require a lot of support. Not little things. Plus, if they give the product away for free, I can see why they'd have a bit higher prices for certain support to make up for it. ( I don't agree with it, but I understand it. )

[Spot]

Yea, we're not talking x86 architechture that most usenet gurus know tons about. IA64 is another animal entirely, from what I've read....not necessarily for the hobbyist

[nfallon]

490.00 per call? That's to much no matter what the architecture. If the call lasts 2 minutes it's still 490.00. If they are going to charge for suupport it should be by the minute like other companies do.

Neil

[JimH]

Description:
Technical support is accessible Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm for
the Mandrake Linux ProSuite Gold package on IA64.
Price: $4900 US (5500 Euros) for 10 incidents -- Level 1/Level 2/Level 3

Seems a little high to me.

Neil

$4900 for ONLY "10 incidents" and ONLY "Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm"? LOL, they must be joking.

Jim H

[paradox]

I think we are talking more than just a phone call saying, "I moved a directory and now I can't find where I moved it to". I think we are talking, "Holy shit, some numb nut down in IT just completely borked our server and we are running on 2 hours downtime already, get us back online!" I am telling you right now, they'd be more than willing to fork over 500 bucks...hell spot made 200 bucks just the other day to fix a shortcut on some accountants desktop, 500 bucks to fix a server aint no big thing, especially on that type of architecture and the size of businesses we are talking about.

Aragorn

[JimH]

500 bucks to fix a server aint no big thing, especially on that type of architecture and the size of businesses we are talking about.

There is a limit to the "they are a "BIG" company with lot's of money, let's see how much money we can get from them" mentality. Higher costs for a company results in higher costs to the consumer (me). :P

Of course if we just eliminate all the lawyers and their frivolous lawsuits we could save a fortune. :

Jim H

[paradox]

Geeze, just looking for something devious in whatever anyone says!

What I MEANT was, they are large corporations, that need something fixed and need it right away. This also means they have other things to be handled and working on something like this will prolly cost them more than the 500 bucks where MDK can have it up and running while they are productive doing other things.

On a side note: yes 500 bucks to most corporations is like 5 bucks to us...

Aragorn

[Spot]

On a side note: yes 500 bucks to most corporations is like 5 bucks to us...

mmm....five bucks....

[nfallon]

Geeze, just looking for something devious in whatever anyone says!

What I MEANT was, they are large corporations, that need something fixed and need it right away. This also means they have other things to be handled and working on something like this will prolly cost them more than the 500 bucks where MDK can have it up and running while they are productive doing other things.

On a side note: yes 500 bucks to most corporations is like 5 bucks to us...

Aragorn

500 bucks is 500 bucks. It doesn't matter the size of the company. The bean counters watch the money in large companies just as they do in small ones.

I don't think that Mandrake would differentiate between a 2 minute call that says how do I do this compared to one that says I lost my directory. Each phone call is an incident unless it is an ongoing incident that is already being worked on.

Neil