Cobol - Fujitsu Support

Author

Fujitsu Support

Thane

2007-02-06, 6:55 pm

I have read several postings here in the past about how "dismal"
fujitsu support is. There have been few actual details other than "I
heard" and "it's only via the web", etc.

In the interest of full disclosure - I worked as a consultant for
Fujitsu on a couple of different projects. This relationship ended in
2003. Since, I have used their products as a regular customer. I
purchased the products and have paid my maintenance faithfully since.

Because the product is rock solid and of all the compilers I have
used, the most free of bugs, it's not often I have a need for
support.

There have been two major occasions, however when I have. (Some minor
issues as well, but nothing that was a bug in the product).

First - several years ago - with v6.0 - I had a performance issue when
multiple users accessed indexed files on a network. Fujitsu resolved
this with a patch that made it into the products later releases.

Recently I hit something very obscure that required opening a support
incident.

I sent an application off for basic windows certification. This is a
complex process, but one major thing that they test is the "legal" use
of file handles. Verisign runs under an application test suite. When
run under this suite, I received a bad file status and the application
would not run.

I created a test program and found an INVALID_HANDLE exception is
thrown under the test suite.

I opened an incident with Fujitsu, and sent the test program and a
link where a version of the test suite could be downloaded.

Fujitsu found the problem - failure to initialize a structure before a
file lock call - and fixed the dll's and sent me the updates. This
will be patched in a future version and actually in no way impacts
system operation or stability. It's something that does not impact
the file system REALLY - just the verisign testing.

This all happened very quickly and I'm very satisfied with Fujitsu
support.

HeyBub

2007-02-06, 6:55 pm

Thane wrote:
> I have read several postings here in the past about how "dismal"
> fujitsu support is. There have been few actual details other than "I
> heard" and "it's only via the web", etc.
>
> In the interest of full disclosure - I worked as a consultant for
> Fujitsu on a couple of different projects. This relationship ended in
> 2003. Since, I have used their products as a regular customer. I
> purchased the products and have paid my maintenance faithfully since.
>
> Because the product is rock solid and of all the compilers I have
> used, the most free of bugs, it's not often I have a need for
> support.
>
> There have been two major occasions, however when I have. (Some minor
> issues as well, but nothing that was a bug in the product).
>
> First - several years ago - with v6.0 - I had a performance issue when
> multiple users accessed indexed files on a network. Fujitsu resolved
> this with a patch that made it into the products later releases.
>
> Recently I hit something very obscure that required opening a support
> incident.
>
> I sent an application off for basic windows certification. This is a
> complex process, but one major thing that they test is the "legal" use
> of file handles. Verisign runs under an application test suite. When
> run under this suite, I received a bad file status and the application
> would not run.
>
> I created a test program and found an INVALID_HANDLE exception is
> thrown under the test suite.
>
> I opened an incident with Fujitsu, and sent the test program and a
> link where a version of the test suite could be downloaded.
>
> Fujitsu found the problem - failure to initialize a structure before a
> file lock call - and fixed the dll's and sent me the updates. This
> will be patched in a future version and actually in no way impacts
> system operation or stability. It's something that does not impact
> the file system REALLY - just the verisign testing.
>
> This all happened very quickly and I'm very satisfied with Fujitsu
> support.

Bottom line: they charge you to report bugs.

Pete Dashwood

2007-02-06, 6:55 pm

"Thane" <thaneh@softwaresimple.com> wrote in message
news:1170784250.628435.51810@v45g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
>I have read several postings here in the past about how "dismal"
> fujitsu support is. There have been few actual details other than "I
> heard" and "it's only via the web", etc.
>
> In the interest of full disclosure - I worked as a consultant for
> Fujitsu on a couple of different projects. This relationship ended in
> 2003. Since, I have used their products as a regular customer. I
> purchased the products and have paid my maintenance faithfully since.

This is kind of a vicious circle. I STOPPED paying maintenance because the
support was so bad...

>
> Because the product is rock solid and of all the compilers I have
> used, the most free of bugs, it's not often I have a need for
> support.
>
> There have been two major occasions, however when I have. (Some minor
> issues as well, but nothing that was a bug in the product).
>
> First - several years ago - with v6.0 - I had a performance issue when
> multiple users accessed indexed files on a network. Fujitsu resolved
> this with a patch that made it into the products later releases.
>
> Recently I hit something very obscure that required opening a support
> incident.
>
> I sent an application off for basic windows certification. This is a
> complex process, but one major thing that they test is the "legal" use
> of file handles. Verisign runs under an application test suite. When
> run under this suite, I received a bad file status and the application
> would not run.
>
> I created a test program and found an INVALID_HANDLE exception is
> thrown under the test suite.
>
> I opened an incident with Fujitsu, and sent the test program and a
> link where a version of the test suite could be downloaded.
>
> Fujitsu found the problem - failure to initialize a structure before a
> file lock call - and fixed the dll's and sent me the updates. This
> will be patched in a future version and actually in no way impacts
> system operation or stability. It's something that does not impact
> the file system REALLY - just the verisign testing.
>
> This all happened very quickly and I'm very satisfied with Fujitsu
> support.
>

Well, it's good to hear that someone is...

My own experiences (and I'll leave the hearsay from other Fujitsu customers
out of this...) have been far from satisfactory.

It WAS good for a while and they had some really excellent people doing
excellent work. (I was extremely impressed with a couple of solutions
provided by Lee Unterreiner) But they fired them in a round of cost-cutting
and everything went downhill rapidly.

For me the crunch came when I had to rewrite almost an entire system (during
implementation on a customer site) from PowerCOBOL into NETCOBOL because COM
components written in PowerCOBOL were throwing undocumented message boxes
that were obscure and seemed to have no relevance. Fujitsu support simply
strung me along. They had no idea what was wrong and were incapable of
fixing it. Had they been honest, I could have taken other actions to
circumvent the problem; instead they kept us hanging for days, expecting a
solution that never came. I worked day and night on that and have never
forgotten (or forgiven) the stress and misery it caused.

I think you may be failing to realize that, because of your personal
connections there, you receive treatment that most customers don't. Try
talking to the user base. Perhaps Fujitsu might publish the feedback from
users, stating their level of satisfaction with the support?

Hard figures would carry more weight than personal opinions (yours or mine).

It probably doesn't make much difference any more whether support is good or
not. I also agree with your statement that, for the most part, the products
are rock solid and don't require much support. But that means that when
support IS required it is not trivial.

People considering moving into COBOL for network development are thin on the
ground, (in fact, you could fire a shotgun and not hiit any) and my own
experience is that the Sales people aren't interested. I wanted to buy Net
COBOL for Dot Net, had funds allocated to do so, no response to my enquiries
(2 of them), and I refused to chase them on principle. I'm not going to beg
some company to sell me their ( very expensive) product. I moved to C#
instead (it's free...) and am VERY glad I did.

For me, Fujitsu is water under the bridge. As a company (not their Support
or Sales departments :-)), I bear them no grudges and hope they succeed, but
I still have friends/clients who would completely agree with HeyBub's
succint statement regarding their support.

Pete.

Thane

2007-02-09, 7:55 am

On Feb 6, 2:39 pm, "HeyBub" <heybubNOS...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Bottom line: they charge you to report bugs.

The maintenance fees charged by a typical company are for paying for
staff and infrastructure to support the product. It's kind of like
insurance. An insurance company charges you to report accidents.

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