[plug] Fwd: Consulting (gateway box) -also- training

[Leon Brooks]

Simon Scott wrote:

> 	Supporting it at 3 in the morning is not.


I haven't had to do that yet. The worst I've had is going in to a client 
at 7PM for emergency repairs (twice) or doing a Sunday-morning-early 
installation at an ISP (twice). Sundays are good work days because you 
very rarely get interrupted.


> 	Unless your customers are suicidal, they will want *some* form of
> support. Do not underestimate the value of this. 


Sure. If we put it in, it works and doesn't get cracked. If you pay us 
to update it, it continues to work and not get cracked. If it gets 
cracked, we repair it from your backups for free. If something breaks, 
and it's not ours, you pay us for fixing it. If you ring us up at 3AM 
just to hear the sound of someone tripping over objects in the dark, you 
get a callout fee.


> 	If you underestimate just how much work there is in supporting this
> stuff, it will kill you.


Since the majority of it will be time-charged and the rest will be for 
agreements of limited lifespan, it should work out OK even if our 
accounting sucks.


> I[']m probably (hopefully) preaching to the choir, but I[']ve seen many
> ventures go under because suddenly they are working for free supporting
> stuff.


Thanks. The proposed policy is: if it's a client machine, dealing with 
it costs the client money. If it wasn't our software (/box) that broke, 
it costs the client money. The idea is to still be in business a couple 
of decades from now. The target is clients who are after business 
security. Some of them will take it seriously and want fault-tolerant 
fireproof multi-PSU wonders running practically no services and those 
chrooted, others will be happy with a gateway that works smoothly for a 
few years at a time.

We will also be offering a pay-for remote update service.

I've spent far too long working essentially for free. I plan to not do 
that again, at least in the computer industry. (-:


> 	And since Linux is nearly free (gratis), people quite often think it
> is a *cheap* alternative. Factor in support, and the TCO gap between linux
> and NT isnt quite the gaping canyon we once thought (and I read that
> directly from a Microsoft FUD page, so it must be true :). 


In reality, the difference is quite startling. I have severasl sites 
where the NT guys almost live there and I just pop in every quarter or 
six months. The only time they draw close is when the hardware is 
unreliable, in which case hardware fatalities swamp software.


> Anyway, enough blathering, just be careful dude. Dont undercharge
> for support contracts. Dont go out to solve problems as a favour.

Well, not ``don't'' but place well-defined and agreed-upon limits before 
you do, and ration yourself.

Cheers.