Conference 7.286::digital

    
PATCHES ON THE INTERNET

(Internal announcement from Sales Update) 


TITLE:

Digital Internet Services:  Software patches via the Internet (FTP & WWW)

CONTACTS:

Jack Callaghan DTN 592-4555, (719)-592-4555 CXO
Mike Temkin    DTN 592-4595, (719)-592-4595 CXO

HIGHLIGHTS:

* Customers can access software fixes directly across the Internet
* Time and money savings for both the customer and Digital
*Available Mid June, 1994 

CUSTOMER PROBLEM:

With the growth in customers, the increasing complexity in software,
and the increase in ASAP delivery of fixes, quick delivery time of
software fixes is imperative. Often many customers are aware of the
problems and simply "need a patch". As businesses everywhere establish
connections with the Internet, the option to simply "pull it over the net"
is in greater demand every day.

DIGITAL SOLUTION
 
Digital service and warranty customers in the U. S. will be able to access all
software patches via the Internet; ULTRIX and OSF/1 patches are now available,
and OpenVMS patches will soon be available.  This gives service customers the 
ability to log into a system (via FTP) to pull patches on their own initiative 
rather than having to log a call with the CSC and then the CSC shipping the
patch to the customer by conventional means.

An online search utility is also available under the World Wide Web interface 
to allow for keyword searches thru the the release notes, patch descriptions,
and READMEs for all patches. This will assist customers in locating patches 
designed to fix problems they have identified in their own environment.
This and other Digital Web offerings can be accessed from node:

www.service.digital.com. (The URL is: http://www.service.digital.com/home.html)
For more information regarding either the FTP Patch Service or Digital's
Service Webserver contact [email protected].

Service customers are required to have a DSNlink authentication key in order
to access and receive software patches via the Internet.  Service customers who
do not have DSNlink will need to contact Digital to request Internet FTP access.
In this case, only the DSNlink key will be generated for the given obligation
ID.  Software Patches can be reached via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) from
node: ftp.service.digital.com.

In addition an anonymous FTP service will also be accessable on node
ftp.service.digital.com. It will supply access to documents and files
intended to be made "available to all" for use by Internet users-at-large. 
These files can be accessed by signing in at the FTP prompt with the
username "anonymous". 

The customer must have a direct connection to the Internet, whether it 
is dedicated or on demand.  Connections via UUCP will not currently work 
with this service, we are reviewing this as a future offering.

This software patch service is available in the U.S. with expansion to a 
world-wide service in the near future.   Access to the Web service and
anonymous ftp are avaiable now on a wordlwide basis.




AVAILABILITY

This service is scheduled for release in mid June 1994.  All customers
with existing SPS contracts for Digital Customer Support can access the 
service using there Customer Obligation ID and DSNlink access code. 
Questions and inquiries can be directed to 1-800-354-9000; ask for the 
DSNlink hotline.

    
    It seems to me that you have a few options:
    
    1.  Have the customer buy with warranty and/or have the product under
    service.  See if you can't get the contract backdated (within reason)
    so that they can get the patch as though they had been under contract
    all along.  (That's a local business decision and varies by rep/account
    as far as I can tell.)
    
    2.  If that is not the case, the customer will have to purchase an
    update license once the new version is commercially available as they
    do not have rights-to-new-versions of software/firmware unless the
    product is under warranty (dependent upon warranty level) and/or under
    contract.
    
    3.  Find a creative way to provide the patches if it's strategic, 
    important, etc...  Work with the product manager and account manager
    (since you're in Consulting) and make a business decision based on your 
    customer situation as to whether or not it is in Digital's best 
    interest to give this patch to them without the update licenses or 
    services warranty/contract.
    
    Ah, the joys of the competitive and/or commodity software markets ---
    especially when competing against "freeware"!
    
    FWIW,
    
    DP

    We do not have a general method for providing patches to non-service
    customers.  Even the Internet patch server makes patches available
    only to those with support contracts.
    
    .2 has some good thoughts on this issue.
    
    				Steve

    Even a customer without a contract can log a call with a CSC. There is
a per call rate that is charged. In the UK that has a minimum of �200 for
up to 1 hours work. That is enough time to copy a patch onto a tape and
ship it to the customer. 

   We have done this in the UK CSC.

Peter

P.S. We didn't charge for the tape :-)

Hell, go right to the engineering group.  If we get a problem escalated to us,
we fix it and provide an ECO kit; if it's a known problem we provide a
pointer to an existing ECO kit - I would't have a clue as to how to verify
that a customer has "support", and i'm not sure it's something I really
want to be worried about anyway.

--Scott

RE .2 - An upate license is not always feasible for products that are not
planned to go to new versions. For instance, I just submitted an ECO kit for TSM
V2.1. At this time, there are no plans to produce a V2.2 or V3.0 version of TSM.
Of course, that may change in the future, but "fixed in next release" won't work
here!

RE .5 - As an engineer, I want to see that a customer gets the functionality
they originally paid for, so my dander starts to get up when I see red tape in
the way of customers getting their fixes (for things that should have worked in
the first place, they will tell you). On the other hand, I am well aware that
maintaining a support infrastructure does not come for free. If a customer
decides that they do not wish to pay for further support, you could argue that
there is no reason for Digital to put money, time, and effort into it. In the
long run, it may not have been a prudent decision on the customer's part (when
they discover the latent bug that has been lying dormant in the code for two
years). So the per-call charge is then reasonable. While the customer might
argue that they should get the fixes for free, they have to realize that had no
one paid for any support (by whatever means, explicit or implicit), there would
have been no one to *do* the fixes or put them on a tape and ship them out the
door.

    OK -- so we've talked a bit about Digital, and what we can and cannot
    do, etc.  How about the competition?  I would encourage service folks
    to poke the following Web address:
    
    		http://www.hp.com
    
    Under the buttons:
    
    	Services & Support
    	  HP SupportLine (http://support.mayfield.hp.com)
    	    Browse Patches
    
    I have downloaded HP patches myself, and certainly do not have a
    service agreement (actually our group does for our HP system, but I
    wouldn't know how to obtain "real" support for it to be honest).
    
    The point is we should be competitive, and do the right thing in my
    mind, by making known fixes available to customers easily, so they can
    get onto the business of using Digital computers to get their work done
    (and buy more!).
    
    Customers that want to (and need to for new problems) use the CSC
    directly, where they can log new problems, get help finding the right
    fix to what they are experiencing, or simply like the human interface.
    
    I'm sure there are reasons we CAN'T do the above (legally, etc) -- what
    a pity IMHO...
    
    -jeff

>    I'm sure there are reasons we CAN'T do the above (legally, etc) -- what

	In my experience, the reasons why we don't do things like what
HP does (in your example) are political in nature.