Let me preface this with I only have 1 year under my EMC/Networker belt.

NETWORKER BACK BURNER?
Um I have only been working with Networker for a year. Started with
7.2.1 and was offered 7.2.2 but elected to wait for 7.3.1... I would
consider 7.3.1 a major release and different enough to warrant an 8.0
designation. That is a marketing thing not a technical thing though. By
making 7.3.x designator they have drawn a line in the sand and said
7.2.x will be the last of that type of program. Kudos to EMC for making
the decision.

Support
I have to tell you I can't agree with you on support. (reference my time
working with Networker compared to yours) I have found the support staff
to be extremely knowledgeable. My biggest complaint (never really
complained about it) is also a compliment. There have been a number of
times when I called for an area expert (Exchange/Oracle/SQL) and that
person was off in training. Your premium funding at work, they train
their people continuously. Which I like. I have not had a question go
unanswered. Heck when I squealed about not being able to get a hold of
the product developer The product manager contacted me personally. If
that is not a responsive company I don't know what is.

Sale of Legato to EMC
Was the sale of Legato to EMC a mistake? Are you kidding me? EMC aka
Deep Pockets, top shelf quality solutions buying Legato, how could that
be anything but a great thing for anyone using Legato products? It may
take them a while to assimilate every nuance and process but I believe
that was a great thing for legato product users.

Pricing Model and Licensing
I have to agree, I don't like buying all the pieces and parts piece
meal. Do the Microsloth thing and have an entry, medium and Enterprise
license where Enterprise includes everything.

The licensing division come on guys, Ax the whole division and come up
with some 256k triple DES encrypted pint of blood taking system. The
licensing thing is painful, but I have only had to go through it one
time for every single add-on as we grow or change. (back to my piecemeal
thing) let me register my enterprise license of NetWorker ONCE and be
done with it.

Cost for Support... You get what you pay for. 24/7 support, some need it
some don't. I believe we are paying 9-5 support right now. How could you
pay $35k a year for support and have any kind of problem what so ever? I
would think whomever you paid for that support contract would be kissing
your proverbial RAM chips to ensure you are happy. Residual income...
KNOW IT.

Outside Support
Are there other folks you could get support from (Cambridge Computers in
the USA) yeah maybe... They sound like a great bunch of folks and they
too sound very well qualified. As long as the person I call picks up the
phone and talks to me, gives me a good answer to the questions I ask you
won't find me complaining much or changing.

THIS LIST
I prefer this list to be outside of EMC. A lot of manufactures and even
Microsoft has internal Blogs or chat boards. This list works well for
me. Less politics more scoop. EMC does support this list indirectly by
having moles errr employees on the list reading and learning from us as
well. If the person sending a problem to the list has a support
contract, I could imagine the team he is assigned to hearing of the
problem and him receiving an unprompted reply. But you always have to
factor in the ATTORNEYS to any good intention. Every contact an EMC
employee has with a client is "exposure" according to an attorney. Which
is why attorneys would tell you if they don't ask, you don't tell. Your
exposure clock doesn't tick until they talk to you directly. It is an
ugly legal world we live in.

CustomerNET
Yeah ok, this cluster fudged web interface was definitely NOT ready for
prime time. There are processes in place when developing a
web-interface. You can not start a web-interface looking at it from the
support side. You need to look at it (or at least present it) from the
customers view. Have your most inexperienced customer try to use the web
while you watch (use WebEX love that feature)... They are upgrading this
and I am going to wait and see if this is better. Licensing makes us
register our software to certain platforms you would think they could
create our accounts from the data they already have in a database some
where.

Ok this is way longer than my boss would appreciate, so you are probably
glad I am ending this here as well. Semper Fidelis et Paratus! /ALE

> -----Original Message-----
> On Behalf Of Dave Mussulman
> 
> * I'm more than a little surprised with the lack of 
> concern/communication EMC/Legato has with its customers.  If 
> I even think about letting my Consumer Reports magazine 
> subscription relapse, I get 30 renewal letters and about as 
> many emails.  For my annual Networker maintenance, I always 
> had to remember to call to get the quote (and finding the 
> right person to talk to wasn't always easy,) and then follow 
> up on the processing of it.  You'd think for $35k/year, my 
> support rep could contact me.  When we decided not to renew, 
> we didn't hear anything from them.  I guess they didn't miss 
> us.  When I do get an email from EMC, it's almost always on 
> their other products (Xtender, or Documentum, or whatever.)  
> In terms of innovation, it looks like they've put Networker 
> on the back burner.
> 
> * Except when they do decide to upgrade Networker, it's a 
> doozy.  These are old rants we're all familiar with.  The big 
> ones I have about this are some of the ones that have come up 
> in conversation today -- the fact they broke their previous 
> release rules.  This should have been an 8.0 instead of a .3 
> release, and the impacts of what an upgrade would have 
> brought should have been more defined.  I'm not faulting them 
> for trying to modernize the product, but woe to the admin who 
> doesn't subscribe to this list to know what the jump from 
> 7.2.1 to 7.3 means.  Also, if it weren't for this list I 
> wouldn't know about most of the patches and upgrades that are 
> available.  That's a great resource -- it's just too bad it 
> needs to come from outside EMC.  Inside EMC, it's hard 
> finding anything on their website.
> 
> * And there are countless other quirks that I have about 
> Networker that I've just internalized and don't even stick 
> out anymore.  Hostname based client assignments, ad hoc 
> backups not integrated with the server scheduled backups, the 
> green/brown classic GUI which has terrible UI pieces that 
> I've just gotten used to (as one example, Cancel meaning 
> close even after the process has finished.)  The inability to 
> easily see media dependencies to tell why a tape hasn't 
> recycled, etc.  If you only looked at what the GUIs allowed 
> (Windows or Unix,) you'd miss out on some of the best 
> functionality of the product - yet most people look at the 
> command line last.

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