[Info-vax] Maybe a bit OT, maybe not.. in any case an interesting article

[Rich Jordan]

On May 18, 12:26 pm, Nomen Nescio <nob... at dizum.com> wrote:
> Paul Sture <p... at sture.ch> wrote:
> > On Mon, 14 May 2012 11:35:27 -0700, John Wallace wrote:
>
> > > I don't know where Nomen Nescio is, but in this part of the world there
> > > are already Linux-centric folk willing to be paid to get phone calls at
> > > 2am in the morning, in sectors varying from SME to corporate. Customers
> > > of these folk probably get better answers than the vast majority of MS
> > > customers ever get from a support call.
>
> Didn't see John's post so I am answering here.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I find Linux vastly superior to Windows. I'm not a Linux
> fan but that doesn't mean I don't realize Windows is crap. I realize Windows
> "support" isn't. But that is not what I meant. I was saying no matter how
> good something is, something that looks impressive is going to be the choice
> whether it's good or not. It's the devil you know vs. the devil you don't
> know for most of these companies. It's not good enough to have one or two
> guys running a Linux support operation even if their support is the best in
> the world. In the vast majority of cases big companies want to see the
> financials of all their providers. They don't want somebody going out of
> business tomorrow and getting screwed on a contract even if it never happens
> in real life. It's stupid but that's the way it is. That is all I meant.
> Believe me, I hate having to run XP just because some of the places I
> consult for refuse to support Linux on their networks and have Windows-only
> clients and other network crap there isn't any open source support for.
>
> > > before Linux users are vulnerable to scamsters like Nerd Support, one of
> > > whose reps spamcalled me the other day and who was puzzled when I asked
> > > him where the Start menu he wanted me to click on "to clear the errors
> > > he'd seen on my computer" could be found on an Ubuntu computer (I don't
> > > use Ubuntu but wondered if he might at least have heard of it and
> > > realise his MS-dependent scam was doomed to failure).
>
> Haha! Yeah..

One time a couple of years ago I got a call at home when I had my
Alpha PWS up and running.  I usually hang up on them but had to take
advantage of that opportunity.  Unfortunately the caller was a
severely non-native-English speaker so it just didn't work out :(  I
was thinking he'd think VMS was VMWare or similar and that he'd hooked
a bigger fish.  Lost opportunities ;)