Ron Stephan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
>We are considering placing some of our maintenance contracts with a third
>party, namely Sherlock Support Group. We are a long time user and supporter
>of HP maintenance, but we must find ways to cut costs and this is a good
>candidate. We have HP1000s, HP3000 and HP9000s on a LAN. The
>manufacturing divisions run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so maintenance
>support is vital issue. What are your experiences with third party vendors?
 
>If any of you deal with Sherlock, how do you rate them? Any input would be
>appreciated.
 
Are you talking about hardware support?  Software support?  Both?  Assuming
that it's hardware support only:
 
I'm uncomfortable going to a third party for hardware support on (1) newer
systems and (2) older systems that are mission critical production systems.
 But I've got no problem with using a third party for peripherals.  Let me
give you some examples of things I've done to reduce maintenance costs.
 
 - I've changed my hardware support for terminals to scheduled on-site
instead of same day service; this reduced the support fees for the terminals
by 1/2.
 
 - When I've been at sites with lots of terminals I've dropped all hardware
support on terminals: depending on the numbers it can be a good bet that
buying one or a few new terminals each year will be cheaper than keeping the
terminals on maintenance.
 
 - I've reduced support levels to next-day on non-mission critical
peripherals: for example, some 256x impact printers and 7980 tape drives
(since I have two of them and they are rarely used.  I've also gone to a
third party for these peripherals.  Note giving only non critical
peripherals to a third party is a good way to build confidence in the third
party's abilities and responsiveness.
 
 - Instead on keeping my 19 DTC 48s on hardware support I've budgeted
emergency funds to acquire a DTC48, TAC card, 625 card and 803 card.
 
 - At one point in the past I had a mix of 7937FL discs and C2204A discs; I
turned the 7937s into a user volume set, loaded all of my test/development
accounts on that volume set, and dropped hardware support on those discs --
the amount I save was enough to buy a used 7937 every months (had I wanted
or needed to ).
 
 - From time to time you can get some very good deals trading in slightly
older equipment for brand new equipment; between the value of the trade and
the savings in support costs you can often get payback within one year. For
example, a couple of years ago C2204 discs were in hot demand in the used
market; I needed to get additional disc space and wanted to go with SCSI; so
I shopped around and was able to trade 12GB on C2204 discs for 14GB of SCSI
discs plus 4 SCSI Device adapters.  That trade cost me $8000: I would up
with more disc space, four channels instead of 2, and a payback well within
one year.
 
 - I went to a third party for maintenance on my 2680 laser printer: saved
about $800/month (i.e.: I reduced my support cost by about 40%)
 
Good luck!
 
 -- Evan