Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: AmigadOS 2.0, RKM's, Devlopers Message-ID: <12762@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 15 Jun 90 21:34:24 GMT References: <3758.tnews@templar.actrix.co.nz> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 76 In article <3758.tnews@templar.actrix.co.nz> jbickers@templar.actrix.co.nz (John Bickers) writes: >Quoted from - fozzy@bhpese.oz.au (Andrew Steele): >> charles@teslab.lab.OZ (Charles W. Widepy) writes: >> >In article <11918@cbmvax.commodore.com> carolyn@cbmvax (Carolyn Scheppner - CATS) writes: >> >>In article <2259@monu1.cc.monash.oz> ins778u@vax4.cc.monash.edu.au (mr c.r. hames) writes: >> >>> [about developer support for Australian developers] >> >>You'd have to contact your local developer support organization >> >This is the crap we, in Australia, have been getting for four years. > Someone from CBM (possibly DH) posted a while back that there was a > European version of CATS, and that Australasia came under their > jurisdiction, not the US (sort of makes sense, what with PAL and the > suchlike). That is ESCO/ADSPE (European Support and Coordination Office/Amiga Developer Support Program Europe, or some-such), based in Frankfurt. They're the other half of the technical support group at present, though for some reason, they cover at least 70% of the Amiga's market with fewer people. Which is what makes the local support managers so important. If the folks in Frankfurt were swamped with technical questions from every non-CATS supported country, they wouldn't be able to keep up, despite the fact that they have many excellent support people (if we could only clone Thomas and spread a few of these copies around the world, all our technical support problems might be solved :-). Anyway, the support deal is supposed to be that you, the Developer in Oz or some other place, asks something of your local support manager. That support manager will contact ESCO if he/she doesn't know the answers, ESCO will contact CATS is they don't know, and CATS contacts Engineering if they don't know. Or something along those lines. In any case, theory has it that once a question is thusly back-propogated, the local support manager will know that question, and you locals are spared the costs of overseas phone calls at strange hours to people who are most likely busy with other things anyway. Also, local support managers are supposed to provide local testing facilities, so you can get access to A3000s without flying halfway across the planet. And from most places at leats, you can also hook into the ADSPE network, which works just like usenet and goes straight to West Chester as well as throughout the ESCO organization and to other developers. If you are having trouble with the local support people, you should complain. But make sure you're trying to use them, and not just blowing them off. > We (in NZ) had our zeroth Amiga conference shortly after this, and were > surprised to see the local CBM people turn up with some support scheme. I don't think you'd have too much trouble getting some Engineering and/or CATS folk out to a southeastern pacific DevCon. Plan it December-January, maybe somewhere in North Queensland. Near the beach. I'd be there in a heartbeat if my bosses approved :-) > But the one developer I do know gets along well enough without CBM > handholding. Is it pre-release hardware and software people want, or > are they just looking for a human index to the RKMs? Most US developers get peeks and samples of pre-release hardware, discounts on shipping hardware, beta testing of early software, and they get to ask questions of CATS and Engineering, though most of the Engineering questions are done in forums like the amiga.com conference on bix or the ADSPE network. No one in engineering has time to take phone calls unless severe problems crop up, and both CATS and the ADSPE folks act as a filter to Engineering. But they also know reliable ways to get Engineering to answe questions, and just who should be asked on various quesitons. I think the current system works pretty well in the US, and should work just as well worldwide. But there may still be some fine tuning necessary here and there, I don't know enough about what's going on worldwide to guess that one. >*** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.co.nz *** -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit" -REM