Re: [libreoffice-marketing] "Microsoft posts video of customers criticizing OpenOffice"

On 10/14/2010 02:20 AM, Drew Jensen wrote:

> But the problem discussed was not 1st and 2nd line support - it was on 3rd and 4th level support.

For fourth level support, you pretty much have to have developers for
the software in question.

The virtue of FLOSS, is that you have source code, and if you have, or
hire programmers, things that require 4th level support can be done
in-house.

The vice of FLOSS, is that since source code is available, nobody
advertises the fact that fourth level support is available.

Both of these factors also apply to third level support.

> Yes we do great at supporting individual users and small business

Maybe.

For an individual, or SOHO that is willing to spend the time browsing
the forums, reading the documentation, subscribing to the lists, that
support is good.

For the individual or SOHO that wants to pick up the phone, the
difficulty in finding a usable phone number for an organization that
provides paid support, implies that support is not good.

Where things go really wrong, is when the individual is hit with the per
incident charge.  "You want how much per phone call?" It isn't that the
charge is outrageous --- it is in line with what Microsoft charges. The
issue is that consumers are not used to paying the same prices as
corporations are, when it comes to software support.

> the presentation was on supporting medium to large organizations.

The vendors in that area have tended to provide support contracts only
for their flavour of OOo, and not the "generic" program.

One has to extensive digging into the OOo website, to find out that
support contracts are available. Other than Sun, those companies are,
for all practical purposes, not listed on the OOo website.

> This is where, IMO, we need to focus some thought - how will the document foundation grow this 
> type support environment.

+1

jonathon
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