RE: WWP and support

[Ben Slone <SloneB@xxxxxxx>]

Beth,

> I don't use your product, and I don't have any stake in what you do.  But
> I
> hate seeing scare tactics being treated like real facts.
> 
As a matter of clarification, Finite Matters Ltd. does not own, have
investment in, resell, or other wise support Quadralay or its products. 

The purpose of my verbose statement was and is to bring a business view of
this issue, not to provide scare tactics. I don't consider anything I stated
to be "scary" - although you obviously disagree with the numbers. As I
mentioned in my previous email, this issue is of interest to me because like
Quadralay and many other companies and individuals who are active on this
list, part of our business is supplying FrameMaker related applications to
the FrameMaker market. It is in our best interest (and other companies like
ours and Quadralay) to attempt to understand this market space and its
customer's needs.


Later,

Ben

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> ----------
> From: 	Beth Friedman[SMTP:bjf@wavefront.com]
> Sent: 	Wednesday, August 11, 1999 4:03 PM
> To: 	Ben Slone; 'Pamela Karoly'; 'framers@FrameUsers.com'
> Cc: 	'Ben Slone'
> Subject: 	RE: WWP and support
> 
> I don't know anything about this product.  I don't know anything about
> what
> constitutes reasonable tech support.  But I do know a bit about
> accounting,
> and from an accounting point of view, there's a major flaw in Mr. Slone's
> logic.
> 
> The employee cost is reasonable, though it looks a bit inflated.  But let
> that pass.  
> 
> The real kicker is the assumption that every purchaser would make use of
> 10
> hours of support time.  Grocery stores print out thousands of coupons.
> But
> they don't count every single coupon printed as a debit.  They look at the
> redemption rate in the past, and make estimates based on that.  And the
> redemption rate of the current coupon gets used as data in estimating the
> next coupon.
> 
> Similarly, just because you provide 10 hours (let us suppose) of free
> support does not mean that every single user is going to use up that free
> support.  It's likely to be much lower than that, especially if the phone
> call is a toll call.
> 
> If the documentation and the help files are adequate, the phone support
> will be limited to two types -- the RTFM guys (the ones who call tech
> support instead of trying to figure it out themselves) who will quickly
> use
> up their 10 free hours and who can probably be handled with a lower level
> of support personnel, and the core users who will probably only call with
> real problems.  And if those real problems are documented in some sort of
> knowledge base on the Web site, the incidence of calls related to that
> problem are likely to decrease.
> 
> I don't use your product, and I don't have any stake in what you do.  But
> I
> hate seeing scare tactics being treated like real facts.
> 
> Beth Friedman
> 
> At 12:29 PM 8/11/99 -0400, Ben Slone wrote:
> >Pamela,
> >
> >Let's explore what you are asking, ten hours of support to be used at
> your
> >discretion. For this much support from a very large, nameless software
> >company, your charge would be at least $1,250. How much would you think
> >technical support costs to provide? I can only guess what Quadralay's
> >
	SNIPPED
      >
> >I'm interested in this subject from a FrameMaker derivative business and
> >community support perspective. From my view, I think Quadralay is
> providing
> >a great product to the community and I'm impressed with their business in
> >this small market.
> >
> >
> >Later,
> >
> >Ben
> >
> 

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