I found the following posted on the SUNW thread (http://www.techstocks.com/~wsapi/investor/s-11222/reply-832):
SUPPORT CALLS JAM THE WIRES OF PC SOFTWARE VENDORS
by Kyle McLaughin
Redmond, Washington (AP)...
Ever since Microsoft Corp. began pushing support of NT onto PC
hardware makers there has been an enormous upsurge in support calls
from end-users from large companies who have purchased NT Servers
for their strategic applications.
Below is one such monitored support call from the Dell Computer
hotline surreptitiously recorded and transcribed with only the
customer's name and service number deleted to protect the
innocent:
"Hello, Dell support? Listen we've got a serious problem with your
NT-server here. We need some help pronto!"
"What is the model of the computer & O/S level?"
"We're using your PC-Super-Charge model 600 here with NT 4.0 to
support our on-line transaction system."
"Which department?"
"International Bond and Currency Exchanges."
"I see, what seems to be the problem?"
"Every Friday on options expiration day, the whole server just stops working. It just hangs."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean it just comes to a grinding halt. No one can use it and our transactions can't get through. On top of that all our traders lose connections to the Enterprise backbone, so their NT workstations
stop working as well."
"...."
"Are you still there?"
"Yes, yes I'm just doing some checking here... just give me a few
seconds..."
<time passes>
"Well, I've consulted my manual here and it says you should reboot
the NT Server and start over again. And if the keyboard is not
accessible you should carefully power the PC-Super-Charge model
600 down, wait until the red light goes out then power it up again. That should reset the station."
"What!!?? we're already doing that! That doesn't fix anything, besides we're losing our on-line transactions."
"Well, sir, just have your operators type them in again. Do you have your system backed-up?"
"Type them in again!!??? Backed up???? Listen, you nitwit, this is
a real-time system, if the transactions don't get to where they are
supposed to go, they're lost forever. Let me talk to an engineer,
I think we have a serious problem here."
"Sir, you don't have to be nasty. If you think the system is failing,
you can always return it for another one, free of charge. Most likely, though, it's a software problem NOT a hardware problem."
"Well, then get me in touch with one of your kernel engineers, maybe it's a known bug in the O/S."
"I'm sorry, we don't have any of those kind of engineers on-site. I can put a call through to Redmond, though, and they can get back to
you."
"How long will that take?"
"Their turnaround time in Redmond is about 3 to 5 days."
"5 days??? Listen, we're dead in the water RIGHT NOW, we can't
wait 5 days. Can't you send someone on site today?"
"Sir, we can replace your hardware, if you want, but that's all we
can do right now, unless you want to try re-booting your server.
Why don't you give it a try, maybe the problem will go away."
<click>. |
