[Info-vax] : Welcome to lockdown - HP limiting access to patches

[Neil Rieck]

"A tale of two companies" by Neil (full of the Dickens) Rieck

Company "A" (my employer)

Our group had a fully paid up software (OpenVMS OS and layered
products on Alpha) support agreement with the Compaq division of HP.
We started this support in 2005 when our 3-year care pack expired. In
2007 our company was going to be taken over by a consortium led by the
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, and including Providence Equity
Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners, Merrill Lynch Global Private
Equity, and Toronto-Dominion Bank. Unbeknown to us, sometime in 2007
the corporate bean counters quietly canceled most software support
contracts including ours (probably to make the company look more
attractive to the new owners who were involved in a bidding war).
Almost a full year passed before someone noticed that we had not
received a shipment of optical media for quite some time. BTW - the
takeover did not happen

(make no mistake: the primary problem was caused by the action of bean
counters on my side)

Company "B" (HPQ)

In August of 2010, I received an HP Alert telling me that, starting
mid September, no one would be allowed to download patches from ITRC
unless the customer possesses a valid paid-up support contract.

Company "A" (my employer)

 Fair enough. Although I always thought these patches were more like
the warranty/recall process in the auto industry (making the s/w
product work the way it should have on the day it was released to
customers), I also know that no one works for free in a capitalistic
world. Also, if paid-up support contracts are one way to signal HP
that our industry still values OpenVMS, then I was willing to comply.
So after explaining to my boss what happened, he authorized me to
contact HP for a quote. So in August of 2010 I attempted to contract
HP to reinstate (if possible) our software support contract. I sent
them an email and cc'd three HP sales people who had helped me in the
past year.

The A-B Story Lines Merge

One month later someone from HP Sales telephoned me stating that my
email had been pinging around HP until someone knew what I was talking
about. Yep, you guessed it. Most Compaq people have been purged and
most HP people are unfamiliar with Compaq (DEC) products. Apparently
they had no record of a software support contract at my location and
nothing in their databases associated with my name so "could I send
them any documents I might have from the previous software contract?"

(my own employer purges inactive customer records after three years -
into an archival system - but I guess I can understand this request;
If most HP people are unfamiliar with Compaq products then why doesn't
HP set up a single-point-of-contact website for all Compaq products?)

So I located some documents (quotes with a Compaq/HP title) from
December-2004 and emailed those into HP (this is a miracle since my PC
had been evergreen-ed several times). Then I waited for another month
or so never heard a peep. So on the first of November, I sent them an
email wondering what was going on. They were very apologetic but
informed me that my documents were too old, contained nothing with an
actual support agreement number, so would probably be required to
"repurchase my software" unless I could provide more information.

(is it possible that the sales people at HP were just jerking us
around because we are another large corporation? It appears to be the
case)

The original purchase cost of all my software was $100k and my boss
damned near had a heart attack when I told him what was being
requested. His only comment to me was "No way! We will work without a
net before we go that route". So I started rummaging through the media
cabinet and located a cardboard box with a shipping label dated
December 2007.  This shipping label contained the Compaq support
contract number as well as some other important stuff which HP sales
was able to use to help me reinstate my support agreement.

Yesterday (Nov-5) HP Sales asked me to provide them a list of the
layered products we wish to have under support. So the ball is now
rolling and I hope to have a quote soon (which my boss could still
refuse).

In all this it was not my intention to give anyone a black eye. I only
wanted to share some of my experiences in case the same thing happens
to you.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/OpenVMS.html