Passport Advantage, yet again

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David E. Grove - 20 May 2005 20:08 GMT

Folks,

Many may remember the Passport Advantage difficulties that Gold Program
Informix customers experienced, recently. There were several threads
starting about Mar. 8, 2005. (Some had PA in the subject, at least one was
about Client SDK 2.90, I think.)

The problem was that Gold Bundle customers were not able to access IDS 10
from their PA customer site. IBM admitted in this newsgroup that there were
problems.

IBM/Informix at first indicated they would not honor their licensing
commitments, but, a few days later, then announced they would. As far as
our agency is concerned, our license terms are clear: we paid our annual
maintenance and are entitled to upgrades (including IDS 10).

During the period of the March postings, IBM/Informix explicitly promised
that the difficulties with the Passport Advantage site would be resolved,
and that IDS 10 would become available to Gold Bundle customers.

IDS 10 is still not available on our customer site.

The good Informix folk aided our agency by making IDS 10 available via FTP.
So, we got the code, and we considered the matter resolved.

It is not.

The problem is that IBM doesn't know we have (properly, lawfully) installed
IDS 10.

The result is that when we attempted to access tech support yesterday, we
were denied. The Informix engineer said we were not authorized to be
running IDS 10 because PA records do not show we have it. He said he had no
choice in the matter.

Now this becomes a serious issue again. We are cut off from tech support to
which we are entitled by virtue of paying IBM our annual $30K.

Has any other Gold Bundle customer yet been able to access IDS 10 from their
Passport Advantage Customer Site? Are any other Gold Bundle customers being
cut-off from tech support?

Why is this issue continuing to be a problem? Why won't IBM fix it? Why
can't we get the support we are paying for? Are others experiencing the
same problem? If not, what did you do to get IBM to honor their
committments?

We don't really have anyone to turn to. No IBM rep has darkened our doorway
for over 3 years. We don't even know to whom to turn for resolution.
Dealing with them over the phone, by website, and by email has been
absolutely useless.

"What we've got here, is failure to communicate."

Regards,

DG

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David Grove

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David E. Grove - 20 May 2005 21:07 GMT

I just spoke with the helpful folks at IBM/Informix customer service.

The engineer that declined tech support was misinterpreting information
available to him. Customer service, who saved the day that last time, again
has solved the issue.

Thank you, IBM/Informix customer support.

DG

P.S. Of course, current products continue to be absent from our IBM PA
site. I despair of PA ever working properly.

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Jack - 20 May 2005 23:01 GMT

I checked into this with some of the folks that work internally on
these things at IBM. The issue is like you said, the entitlement for
Gold Bundle is only updated every so often. When the new update comes
along with the build inside of PPA, it specifies what versions of IDS
and DB2 are supported as part of the customer's entitlement. The
problem is, as it shows here, that new versions of IDS and DB2 come out
from time to time and those new versions are not mentioned specifically
in the Gold Bundle's most recent entitlement build. I haven't heard
when the next version of the Gold Bundle will be out or if there will
be

The only way currently known to change this is to change your
entitlement to strictly IDS or DB2.

Regards,
Jack Dotson
The Kazer Corporation
888-886-7722 x103
jdotson@kazer.com

> I just spoke with the helpful folks at IBM/Informix customer service.
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> P.S. Of course, current products continue to be absent from our IBM PA
> site. I despair of PA ever working properly.

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David E. Grove - 20 May 2005 23:37 GMT

Thank you for the information, Jack.

I think I understand (a little) what is (not) happening. But, "why?" I
don't think I'll ever figure out.

> The issue is like you said, the entitlement for
> Gold Bundle is only updated every so often. When the new update comes
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> when the next version of the Gold Bundle will be out or if there will
> be

In our opinion, this state of affairs is not really acceptable. Especially
the apaprent doubt by IBM: " ...or IF there will be."

Why can't IBM update the Gold Bundle entitlements when the components which
are included in the Gold Bundle change? Sort of sounds like just a matter
of referential integrity, no? Just try to imagine a database without it.
(I know... the old days.)

When IBM solicited us to buy the Gold Bundle, our rep at the time (long
since disappeared from IBM) assured us (in fact it was his main pitch) that
there was absolutely no downside. We would be getting everything we
currently had, PLUS the right, at our option and timeframe, to convert to
DB2, should we choose to do so. It is now almost 3 months into the IDS 10
release, and, there is no official Passport Advantage availablility of the
product. Informix Customer Support (thank you, Jason) has been of great
assistance, but they are, in effect, working against their own larger
organization. They charged into the breech, and delivered on the product.
But, it would appear that other parts of IBM (specifically PA) can't/don't
know that. Talk about an impedance mismatch!

> The only way currently known to change this is to change your
> entitlement to strictly IDS or DB2.

Sort of a de facto abrogation of the Gold Bundle product, no?

Thanks again for the info, Jack.

DG

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David E. Grove - 24 May 2005 19:27 GMT

The good news:
The folks at Informix recognize us as a valid customer, and let us know that
they will honor our tech support contract.

The bad news:
No one can say when the Passport Advantage Customer sites will be fixed.

IBM/Informix may officially be a single entity. Nevertheless, Informix
folks help us; IBM folks hurt us.

DG

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david@smooth1.co.uk - 25 May 2005 23:08 GMT

Will be mention tomorrow by me to IBM

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David E. Grove - 26 May 2005 17:41 GMT

> Will be mention tomorrow by me to IBM

Thanks for your concern.

We think we understand why we get short shrift: It's simple economics.
There's nothing really in it for IBM. Use of Informix in State of Alaska
agencies has been declining (very few $ for IBM) for the past few years-- so
far as I know, our agency is the very last one. But, we, too, have decided
to fold our Informix tent (in large part due to unacceptable customer
service from IBM) and are currently implementing plans to gO tO sOme Other
database platfOrm.

Technologically, I have misgivings about the upcoming switch because I just
have doubts about the whole multiversioning thing. But, I suppose, with
proper study & understanding, and upon getting out of the re-education
camps, I will probably embrace it. Millions use it; it must be gOOd.
Anyway, it's the old "The king is dead; long live the king" thing.

DG

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david@smooth1.co.uk - 27 May 2005 00:05 GMT

Any chance you could stayt with IBM if I can get them to
work better with you? I talked to the north europe salesman
for Informix Databases today and I've got contacts in IBM now...

I'M HAPPY TO REVERSE ENGINEER THE IBM CORPORATE
STRUCTURE AND GET THEM TO WORK BETTER WITH
CUSTOMERS...

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David E. Grove - 27 May 2005 17:48 GMT

> Any chance you could stayt with IBM if I can get them to
> work better with you? I talked to the north europe salesman
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> STRUCTURE AND GET THEM TO WORK BETTER WITH
> CUSTOMERS...

Thank you, David, for your sincere interest in "fighting the good fight."
Maybe if this were a year or two ago... (We have been having difficulty for
over 3 years.)

To the best of my knowledge, the die has been cast, and now it's a matter of
timing. Of course, in a dynamic, political environment one learns to "roll
with the punches" and "never say never".

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Mark Townsend - 27 May 2005 03:42 GMT

> are currently implementing plans to gO tO sOme Other
> database platfOrm.

WelcOme abOard.

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Christopher - 27 May 2005 15:47 GMT

> But, we, too, have decided
> to fold our Informix tent (in large part due to unacceptable customer
> service from IBM) and are currently implementing plans to gO tO sOme Other
> database platfOrm.

At our latest KCIUG meeting, we took a spot poll of our attendees.
Every single one who works with support felt that the quality of
service has declined recently. When I spoke to some of the users
privately, I heard more than a few stories that sound a lot like
David's: "We had a problem, IBM gave us the run around, finally
someone cut corners for us and got the problem resolved, but we're left
with a bad taste in our mouth."

One thing that surprised me is how many felt the level of technical
service has decreased. It used to be that the tech side was good and
everyone despised the customer service side.

Several of the users have had to argue to their higher ups that it is
still worth sticking it out. Some just feel it is not worth fighting
it.

For the IBM employees reading this, please understand that there is a
widespread perception problem. I am not suggesting it is a universal
decline, that everyone hates you, personally, or that IBM is willfully
ignoring the problem à la http://tinyurl.com/9qgu7

However, we see t00 many p0sts like that 0ne, and they are n0t all
tr0lls. We users keep harping out of the hope that something will
change. After all, we finally got IBM ads that mention Informix, so
anything is possible.

Now I must go wash off the feeling of l33t sp34k.

Sincerely,

Christopher Coleman

President
Kansas City Informix Users Group
www.iiug.org/kciug

Database Analyst
Medication Management
Mediware Information Systems, Inc.

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