Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!intercon!news
From: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: System 7.0 and MacDTS policies
Message-ID: <26883CF9.2BCB@intercon.com>
Date: 27 Jun 90 04:58:33 GMT
References: <1990Jun21.215639.16938@efi.com> <8842@goofy.Apple.COM> <1990Jun25.223451.2864@efi.com> <42340@apple.Apple.COM> <1990Jun26.192623.7121@efi.com>
Sender: usenet@intercon.com (USENET The Magnificent)
Reply-To: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Herndon, VA
Lines: 43

In article <1990Jun26.192623.7121@efi.com>, tim@efi.com (Tim Maroney) writes:
> maybe you could let the screeners know that if, say, Rich
> Siegel, Amanda Walker, Gary Fitts, Joel West, Tim Maroney, etc., ask a
> question, it should almost surely be passed along.  Obviously, this has
> problems too, and you might also want to extend it in the other
> directions if a lot of someone's questions are RTFMs, but it's better
> than nothing.

Tech Support Triage like this might be effective, but I can't see much of
a way to make it practical, not to mention palatable to the people who aren't
on the "good list".

Of course, some of this happens already on an informal level.  For example,
I have a small collection of Apple business cards and email addresses that
enable me to call up an engineer and bypass MACDTS altogether.  Since I know
enough not to do so except as a last resort, they know that if I'm calling
with a problem, it's (a) really a problem with their stuff, (b) serious,
and (c) reproducible.  I know enough not to waste their time, just as they
know enough not to waste mine in similar circumstances.  If I were to start
abusing this privilege, my phone calls would start getting lost in Apple's
Voicemail system... :-).

I suspect that I'm not the only one in such a position.  This is one of the
benefits of going to things like trade shows, the DevConf, and so on.  You
get to know people.

On a slightly less informal level, people and companies that have proven
themselves end up working with evangelists, which is still a cut above the
average Apple Partner who sits on AppleLink and goes through the standard
queue.  The biggest barrier seems to be getting a real live good product
out the door.  After that, Apple takes you more seriously.

On the flip side, one of the things about forking over the yearly fee is
that you get as much access to MACDTS as anyone else on AppleLink.  This
has its good points as well as its bad points.

I also sympathize with the MACDTS people, since I know how hard it is to
find good technical support people...

--
Amanda Walker, InterCon Systems Corporation
--
The customer isn't always right, but they do get an unnatural amount of slack.