High maintenance fees / finding errors in modified code

<vendor>


Good morning "sjl" ...

Consider third party iSeries technical support delivered over VPN and paid
for only if: a) you initiate a specific request for help, and b) the quality
and timeliness of the debug/answer/advice was high. Our NoExcuses HelpLine
support works that way. Some of our customers call us only a few times a year
to solve their toughest "I'm completely stumped" problems .... and we get
them through those occasional headaches for a cumulative annual cost of under
$3,000.

More info about the service:
www.unbeatenpath.com/up-a-notch/noexcuses.pdf

We handle customized/home-grown code by utilizing the de-bug functionality of
our Stitch-in-Time software product; it makes us very efficient debugging
software we've never seen before.

More info about the product:
www.unbeatenpath.com/software/sit/Stitch-in-Time.pdf
More info about the debug functionality (read the 4th paragraph here):


www.unbeatenpathintl.com/letter-of-recommendation/software/IBMi/sai01nelson.p
df

It's a fact that we can't help if you don't have access to the source code
for things like security objects. Only the IP owner can provide that. But we
have many examples of enterprises that pay support to the IP owner to get new
keys, etc. but rely on Unbeaten Path for quickly bailing them out of
challenging operational problems.

Warm regards,
Milt Habeck
Unbeaten Path
(888) 874-8008
+262-681-3151
mhabeck@xxxxxxxxxx




</vendor>















From: sjl
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 8:00 AM
To: midrange-nontech@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: High maintenance fees Was: Next Version of JDE World requires i
7.1



Rob -



Over the last 25 years I have worked in over a dozen shops which had JDE
software. The ones who paid for support had a license for the source code
and had heavily modified the code. The primary reason for staying JDE
support was NOT for their help desk - IMHO many of the guys on their help
desk were a joke - rather, they did it to be able to periodically receive the
JDE updates (particularly the annual 1099 updates) with the latest versions
of the code, enabling them to maintain the code themselves.



On my very first call to JDE support, I had an issue with a program which we
had modified. I was fairly certain that the problem was in the original JDE
code, not the mods we had made, so I called the JDE support line to report
the problem.



The guy on the support line asked me several questions, including 'have you
modified the program?'.



When I answered "Yes", he condescendingly said:

'Well, you obviously must have introduced the bug when you modified the
code."



I bit my tongue and thanked him for his time, asked him to keep the support
ticket open, and hung up.



I then went into the JDE 'Pristine' environment where the unmodified code is
kept and confirmed that the bug was in the original unmodified code.



On my subsequent call to JDE support, the guy noted that they would need to
duplicate the problem on /their/ system, so he gathered the necessary
information from me and told me that it would take a few days for them to
investigate the problem.



I got a call a week later indicating that they had found the problem, but
that the fix would not be available until the next release of the software,
which would be a few months in the future.



Result: I found and fixed the problem myself and [except on rare occasions]
never called JDE support again.



The most common answers that I received on other JDE support line calls were:



'The program is working as designed' or 'We cannot duplicate the problem on
our system'



(Meaning "Sorry, you are SOL")



-sjl









Rob wrote:

That is a pretty salty maintenance fee.



If you didn't know that JDE support was a million bucks, would you feel that
the 3rd party maintenance people are really worth several hundred thousand
dollars per year? Do you really feel that you get the benefit out of them
that you wouldn't get in having a team of consultants on your premises full
time for that whole year? Because for several hundred thousand dollars per
year that could be done. Or is this one of those deals where it's "Honey,
the list price on this mattress is $1,500, see the tag? But they only want
$350!"



Rob Berendt

Group Dekko