Anybody recall FTP software? In its heyday, FTP dominated the PC IP stack market. Our midsize (1,000-node) shop discovered an annoying bug in its Microsoft Windows 3.1 telnet product, and we reported it. The very next day we were downloading a new, fixed binary. Woo hoo!
Another happy ending: Some years ago, in the middle of a rollout, we encountered a problem with our Proteon NIC driver. The Proteon tech we contacted tried everything he could remotely, then finally said, "Just send us the whole system and we'll figure it out." Now that was service with a smile! Proteon determined the problem stemmed from a design glitch with the PC motherboard, but there was no "blamestorming": We were given a workaround driver.
As the pace of info tech became increasingly frantic, some bright bean counter started focusing on the fact that fixing problems can be expensive. "What if we convert the traditional bug-release cycle into a rat maze of bureaucracy? Eventually most folks will give up, and we'll save big bucks!"
The runaround
These days, reporting a bug goes something like this:
IT: Hi. I've taken the time to reproduce what looks like a bug, and have e-mailed you a detailed description including patch levels and simplified lab-setup instructions.
Vendor: Hi. I'm a first-level technician. Let me waste your time by asking if you've rebooted and what version of the software you're using. Then, let me ask you to do something completely insane: reboot all your routers.
IT: Argh!
Vendor: Hold please.
After you've played phone tag, exchanged countless e-mails with the first-level tech and threatened bodily harm, your call might get escalated.
Vendor: Hi. I'm a second-level tech but am going to say I'm a product engineer. I've read your description of the problem and have even reproduced the glitch in our lab. I guess it's a bug, and though I'm tempted to blame it on another product in your environment, I'll fess up because I hear you've threatened to break someone's arm if I don't.
IT: Great. When do you think we'll see a fix?
Vendor: (Uncomfortable silence) Uh, next service pack?
IT: But we need to roll this thing out. You guys wouldn't let us test-drive the product before our boss bought into it, and now we need to make it work.
Vendor: I can send you our 10-page bug-report form, which we'll be more than happy to ignore if you don't represent a huge, multinational company. Unless your problem is a security bug and you threaten to alert Bugtraq, we'll eventually put forth "as designed" as a resolution, but in the meantime let's "black hole" this: You won't hear back from us for a few months.
The Future
It may not be as bleak as we imagine. I've received reports lately that sound like they're from the good old days. One local ISP gentleman told me he contacted Vircom, his RADIUS vendor, with a problem and got a code fix overnight. A Citrix reseller informed me that Citrix spun some custom code to get him through a rollout.
Given today's lean economy, this makes sense. In the fat times, vendors could push us into the rat maze and remind us that plenty of other paying customers were right behind us. But now, just as we in IT must offer business incentives to satisfy our customers, vendors must fix problems in a timely way to satisfy theirs. I urge you to reward those vendors who do so by showing your support and appreciation.
Jonathan Feldman is chief technical manager of the Chatham County Government in Savannah, Ga. Send your comments on this column to him at jf@feldman.org.
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