Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!uwvax!rhesus!bin
From: bin@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Empress pricing policy (really Ingres hassles)
Message-ID: <414@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 88 15:55:21 GMT
References: <12835@ncoast.UUCP>
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
Lines: 28

From article <12835@ncoast.UUCP>, by allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery):
> As quoted from <374@telly.UUCP> by evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch):
> +---------------
> | They MAKE a database system, and keeping track of pricing data is too much
> | of a headache? Do these people know how to use their own product?
> +---------------

I sometimes wonder this about RTI as well.  My Ingres license used to be
for another CPU.  Then it was transferred to my machine.  It took RTI about
a year and a half to figure out how to do this.  And they still didn't have
it right:  half of the mail was coming to me, half to the former license
owner.  I finally got them to send me version 5.0 in February, but they
didn't send any installation manual or other documentation (had to borrow
it from the former owner...).  In the last 9 months or so, we've had the
fun of receiving a bill from them, issuing a requisition to pay it, then
several months later getting a letter threatening to cut off our support
for non-payment.  And why was that?  Because they sent the response to
our requisition BACK TO THE FORMER LICENSE OWNER!!  You'd think they could
send the initial bill and the req'n response to the same place.  You'd
think they could get my name into their own database consistently to replace
that of the former owner.

My experience with their tech support has been good, but their customer
relations department has been nothing but one long headache.

Paul DuBois
dubois@primate.wisc.edu	rhesus!dubois
bin@primate.wisc.edu	rhesus!bin