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From: an12280@mdaali.cancer.utexas.edu (David Gutierrez)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: AppleTalk Phase 2 and FastPath Manager II?
Message-ID: <4066@lib.tmc.edu>
Date: 24 Aug 90 16:36:11 GMT
References: <1990Aug22.122614.29874@bnrgate.bnr.ca>
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Organization: Univ. Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
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In article <1990Aug22.122614.29874@bnrgate.bnr.ca> Adrian_Ruigrok@bcarmqm1 
(Adrian C. Ruigrok) writes:
> Lets be fair.  These guys in the trenches did not decide to take on the 
FastPaths.
>  I would bet they are none too happy about it, in fact.  When I talked to
> them they seemed to be trying.  It will take them some time to ramp up. 
> But I have heard a few good things about Shiva.  Though some say their 
support
> is for the birds, others swear by it.  

Although I might not go so far as to swear by it, I do feel that I should 
speak up in Shiva's behalf.

We were recently hit by the FastPath power supply harness problem. After 
several calls, I was finally able to get in touch with someone who was 
able to diagnose the problem immediately, since it was an easy one. They 
gave me a number to call for an outfit (Federal Technology Corp.) that was 
supposed to handle their servicing. When I called FTC, I got a recording 
asking for my number and a brief description of the problem so that they 
could call me back. They still haven't called; it's been two weeks.

I didn't wait two weeks to get back in touch with Shiva. When I 
complained, I was forwarded to the tech support manager. After a week of 
delays while they waited for parts and tried to set up procedures for 
hardware repair, they finally offered to "loan" me a FastPath while mine 
was being fixed. "Loan" means they offered to ship it to me on a net 30 
purchase plan; I was to ship it back when my FastPath was fixed.

The repair cost will be billed to Novell, since they sold me the FastPath. 
It does make me wonder if Shiva is planning to charge customers for 
repairs on newer units, though.

Although it took a week and a half to regain our Ethernet access, I think 
that Shiva will be able to handle this kind of problem more quickly in the 
future. They kept me up to date on their progress toward figuring out how 
to handle these problems and tried to get us back in operation as quickly 
as possible. I don't know what would have happened if I'd had a software 
problem, but I'm satisfied with the support I got from Shiva.

David Gutierrez
an12280@mdaali.cancer.utexas.edu

"Only fools are positive." - Moe Howard