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From: Bron@cup.portal.com (George Bron Faison)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Oracle Support
Message-ID: <30838@cup.portal.com>
Date: 16 Jun 90 07:11:59 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 45

Unfortunately, our experiences have been almost a mirror of yours,
except that years ago we gave up on their support and now just go it
alone.  Yeah, that means we have to buy full licences, no upgrades, and yeah,
that's a b*tch!  However, the alternative was to go crazy trying to deal
with them.  (And then there's the Version 6 is a new product not an upgrade
crap that made us look pretty wise, sigh!)

I know of one site, very prominent in the Oracle world, that has had
billing problems on support for 7 or more years!!!  They don't ever
expect them to end.

We have experienced every problem your letter cites at one time or another
and my conversations with others seem to indicate that it is pervasive.  It
is tolerated because they DO have a good product, however, I am starting to
hear a lot more talk from clients similar to yours, that is, along the
lines of "I've had enough of this sh*t!  I'm looking around!"

It's unfortunate, we've been using Oracle for over 6 years and as the
fella said "Oracle has been berry, berry good to me" in terms of our
revenues and successful development efforts on behalf of our clients.
I've had similar experiences with other companies, but Oracle's
premium prices and outlandish support fees, together with their
arrogance serve only to rub salt in the wound!

There are a lot of good people working at Oracle, the problem is they
are usually moved to internal positions where they're hard to get at
(every Oracle site I know of has their "list" of names to call when
there's a real emergency) and the tech reps you usually reach seem to
have somewhere between 6 days and 6 months of experience and often just
give out wrong advice (as you stated).

Another irritation, is that Oracle sells their "Consulting Services"
to assist you in doing things because their documentation and support
make it virtually impossible for a new site to get up and running without
help (if they have any non-trivial applications and are new to relational
systems, anyway) and some sites buy into it because it's
the only way to get people who half-way know what they're doing (again at
quite steep prices).  I don't usually complain about this though, because
it generates a great deal of business for me :-}.

Maybe users should burn their support agreements at the next IOUG?

Bron	( Bron@cup.portal.com )   ( Voice: 804-730-1467 )
Modern Office Systems Technology, Inc.
6006-B Mech. T'Pike, Mech. VA 23111