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

[Neil Rieck]

On Feb 14, 7:00 am, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh... at telia.com>
wrote:
> Neil Rieck wrote 2011-02-14 12:14:
>
>
>
> > On Nov 6 2010, 7:52 am, Neil Rieck<n.ri... at sympatico.ca>  wrote:
> >> "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
>
> > Hey hey hey, I now have a fully paid up OpenVMS support agreement,
> > OpenVMS-8.4 CD-ROM kit, and access to the patch site atwww.itrc.hp.com.
> > It only took five months (there was lots of stupidity at both ends of
> > the transaction; things would have gone a little faster without
> > Christmas holidays stuck in the middle; I could have saved 4 weeks had
> > I been allowed to use a credit card as HP wanted)  but we can now pick
> > up where we left off last September.
>
> > NSR
>
> Why on earth should one need a *credit card* to do business between
> two rather large corporations ??

HP was okay with doing the PO thing to pay for the OpenVMS support
contract, but they wanted a credit card (or cheque) for the OpenVMS
8.4 media kit (e.g. CD-ROMs etc.)

I'm not complaining one way or the other because I know that some
sales people need stats like this to keep their jobs.

NSR