I too have had excellent experiences with HP support - both hardware and
software.  I've received speedy, helpful, intelligent, and complete
responses from the Response Center, and while I haven't had a hardware call
since installation, I did have some hardware issues at installation and the
hardware support I received at installation was also excellent.  I'm in a
somewhat unusual hardware support situation, as two doors down the hall
from the location of the HP 3000 is the on-site HP support group (they are
there for the many HP 9000s).  Yes, the hardware is pretty much the same,
but there are only couple of guys that had seen an HP 3000 prior to ours
being installed.  However, just because an HP CE is HP-UX/HP 9000
proficient and not MPE/iX/HP 3000 proficient doesn't mean he/she will turn
up their nose at the HP 3000.  Quite the contrary.  They are always very
helpful.  The two questions they always ask are "what was it about the HP
3000 that made you buy it instead of the HP 9000?" and "what would HP need
to add to HP-UX to get you to convert to the HP 9000?".  Gee, I wonder how
I came to the conclusion that the HP CEs are more in tune to the customer
than the HP marketing and corporate executive staff.

John

At 2002-09-06 10:19 AM, F. Alfredo Rego wrote:
>Tom Hula <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>... I won't even go into the fact that HP is no longer supporting us
>>with low-cost line printers of any kind. I'm sorry, but laserjet
>>printers just don't work everywhere.
>
>I agree.  At Adager, we have a mix of line printers and LaserJet
>printers (not to mention bubble-jet printers, Apple Color LaserWriters,
>and what-have-you, including some of Wirt's System2000 daisy printers,
>which I believe Wirt doesn't have any longer :-)
>
>We do our own maintenance (hardware, software, network) for the
>printers that HP no longer supports.  We also have support contracts
>for the LaserJet printers that HP still supports.  At home, I have a
>fully-loaded 8000 and a fully-loaded 5Si (with all input trays,
>output stacker, duplex, you name it).  The main Adager office also
>enjoys this kind of super-duper printer.
>
>Last week, I was having difficulties with one of my home printers
>and I called HP.  A very knowledgeable HP (Boise) engineer laughed
>when I told him that I had experienced "the mother of all paper
>jams".  After he walked me through the disassembly of paper-path
>regions -- some of which I didn't even know existed --, he agreed :-)
>
>I did the voodoo that he recommended and issued a command that
>exercised the paper path (duplex and all).  All appeared well and we
>closed the call.
>
>The next print job included the ISO/IEC 9899 International
>standard for the C Programming Language (duplex, pre-punched,
>almost 600 pages).  By the time it tried to print the "Environment"
>page (p.9) it ground to a halt.  I called HP again and I was
>guided through yet another paper-path chase, cleaning bits-and-pieces
>of smeared C material (it felt like debugging :-)
>
>The engineer asked, "you don't happen to have another printer of
>this type handy, do you?"  I said, "but of course I do".  Happily,
>we agreed to "cannibalize" (a common HP term as applied to the
>hp3000 :-) the other printer and to substitute a few of
>the guts.  At some point, things started working like magic.  We
>agreed that "that" was the piece in question.  HP promptly sent
>the replacement and everything was great a couple of days later.
>(Fortunately, I could live happily with just one printer while
>the new piece arrived :-)
>
>The whole experience was fun and educational.  The small boy in
>me loves to tinker with all kinds of toys.
>
>
>>In any case, all I got from HP was "the speech" on why they couldn't
>>do anything for me or even suggest anything. The speech was
>>carefully schooled, as he basically said, in nice sounding words,
>>tough luck and too bad and have a nice day.
>
>In my case, I didn't get any canned speeches.  Perhaps I was lucky
>because I was dealing with top-notch people from HP's Boise facility
>(and we chatted about Sun Valley being just down the street, etc.)
>
>In fact, they WERE extremely proud to work for HP and I mentioned to
>them how their IT department used Adager on their TurboIMAGE
>databases, and so on.  They *knew* about MPE-Image and they were
>very pleased that I worked with HP's products.
>
>
>>So in other words, if everything was just right for them and I was
>>still having a problem, then they would be forced to actually help.
>>Useless.
>
>I am sorry to hear that Tom had such a bad experience.  Our two
>(very different) results suggest that it is nearly impossible
>to extrapolate from specific instances.  Two completely different
>conclusions can be (rightly) drawn from our cases.
>
>I sincerely hope these wonderful HP Boise engineers will not be
>asked (or "motivated") to leave HP.  That would be tantamount to
>throwing the baby with the bath water.  Not that HP has ever done
>that, of course :-)
>
>   _______________
>  |               |
>  |               |
>  |            r  |  Alfredo                     [log in to unmask]
>  |          e    |                           http://www.adager.com
>  |        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego
>  |      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs
>  |    d          |  Adager Corporation
>  |  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
>  |               |
>  |_______________|
>
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