Comments on: Vendor Responsiveness http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/ The weblog of an IT pro specializing in virtualization, storage, and servers Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:26:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Cisco Home Lab http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/comment-page-1/#comment-37284 Cisco Home Lab Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:52:10 +0000 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/#comment-37284 I've had some exposure to CMMi's Software Development Life Cycle and from I've seen, actively seeking feedback from your customers is a sign of a mature software development company. I get the impression that VMWare has done a good job of building this design philosophy into their company culture. As for "I suppose I could be cynical and say that they’re only behaving this way because they don’t want to look bad...", I have a different take. Anyone in IT knows what a pain it is to deal with someone who is always complaining about a problem, but will not take the time to actually let you fix it. I find these people to be the worst type of customers to support. But what if you had a customer who not only points out issues, but is more than willing to go that extra mile with you to try to identify and solve those problems? These are the type of customers you want because not only can they find value in your product, but you gain value from their willingness to work with you. I'd say you fit into this category. I've been fortunate enough to meet with several VM reps and they always seemed willing and eager to take what you are telling them back to the design teams. For us, it was a Multicast issue that was preventing us from fully utilizing our VMWare environment for application testing. Not only did this issue was this issue conveyed back to the design team, it was put in the 3.5 roadmap and we were apprised of 3.5's status. And we are just a small SMB application developer in a niche market. I’ve had some exposure to CMMi’s Software Development Life Cycle and from I’ve seen, actively seeking feedback from your customers is a sign of a mature software development company. I get the impression that VMWare has done a good job of building this design philosophy into their company culture.

As for “I suppose I could be cynical and say that they’re only behaving this way because they don’t want to look bad…”, I have a different take.

Anyone in IT knows what a pain it is to deal with someone who is always complaining about a problem, but will not take the time to actually let you fix it. I find these people to be the worst type of customers to support.

But what if you had a customer who not only points out issues, but is more than willing to go that extra mile with you to try to identify and solve those problems?

These are the type of customers you want because not only can they find value in your product, but you gain value from their willingness to work with you. I’d say you fit into this category.

I’ve been fortunate enough to meet with several VM reps and they always seemed willing and eager to take what you are telling them back to the design teams. For us, it was a Multicast issue that was preventing us from fully utilizing our VMWare environment for application testing. Not only did this issue was this issue conveyed back to the design team, it was put in the 3.5 roadmap and we were apprised of 3.5’s status.

And we are just a small SMB application developer in a niche market.

]]> By: slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/comment-page-1/#comment-36177 slowe Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:16:55 +0000 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/#comment-36177 Randy, Thanks for your response. Understandably, customers are a bit uncomfortable building mission-critical solutions based on technologies or functionality that is not officially supported. I have had problems with jumbo frame support in vmkernel (I'm working with a Product Manager now to recreate the problem), so apparently it's not as rock-solid as it needs to be. When it is, I'm confident VMware will provide official support and customers will begin embracing it. Randy,

Thanks for your response. Understandably, customers are a bit uncomfortable building mission-critical solutions based on technologies or functionality that is not officially supported. I have had problems with jumbo frame support in vmkernel (I’m working with a Product Manager now to recreate the problem), so apparently it’s not as rock-solid as it needs to be. When it is, I’m confident VMware will provide official support and customers will begin embracing it.

]]> By: Randy Robertson http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/comment-page-1/#comment-36166 Randy Robertson Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:41:22 +0000 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/#comment-36166 Jumbo frame support in vmkernel is there as of 3.5. I wouldn't knock a feature or not try it just because it is no "officially supported", we wouldn't put the code out there unless were were reasonably confident that it works. Jumbo frame support in vmkernel is there as of 3.5. I wouldn’t knock a feature or not try it just because it is no “officially supported”, we wouldn’t put the code out there unless were were reasonably confident that it works.

]]> By: william bishop http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/comment-page-1/#comment-35839 william bishop Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:25:32 +0000 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/#comment-35839 It does work, but is not technically supported yet. You will not notice improvements in anything except databases(possibility). W. It does work, but is not technically supported yet. You will not notice improvements in anything except databases(possibility).

W.

]]> By: slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/comment-page-1/#comment-35793 slowe Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:20:23 +0000 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/#comment-35793 Kevin, No, they didn't share any of that information. Some of the conversations I've had seem to imply that (with regular NICs at least) jumbo frames will work, but aren't supported. I haven't been able to actually confirm that via testing yet. Kevin,

No, they didn’t share any of that information. Some of the conversations I’ve had seem to imply that (with regular NICs at least) jumbo frames will work, but aren’t supported. I haven’t been able to actually confirm that via testing yet.

]]> By: Kevin http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/comment-page-1/#comment-35768 Kevin Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:18:11 +0000 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/#comment-35768 Did they give you any idea when they would support Jumbo frames with iSCSI HBA's? Did they give you any idea when they would support Jumbo frames with iSCSI HBA’s?

]]> By: william bishop http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/comment-page-1/#comment-35767 william bishop Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:44:15 +0000 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/02/25/vendor-responsiveness/#comment-35767 I've heard the same type of thing several times from other companies that vmware sells to. It's certainly peculiar, but it seems not unique to you or them. I pretty much blew it off until one of their SE's came to us about two months ago to ask about a SR that we had put in a long time ago, which was resolved, and was looking to see if there was a way they could have improved upon the experience, or if we had any suggestions. An offhand remark we made once about something we didn't love in 3.0(can't even remember what it was) to another engineer ended up resulting in several calls that seemed to be aimed at improving their product. I don't know what's up with this company, it's certainly offputting though. I expect a questionaire(which I'm almost positive is discarded) after an event, I don't expect people to show up for lunch and a tete a tete! I know actual customers whose requests have been incorporated into the product. I've never seen such as this, but I think I will remain a loyal customer from here on. I’ve heard the same type of thing several times from other companies that vmware sells to. It’s certainly peculiar, but it seems not unique to you or them. I pretty much blew it off until one of their SE’s came to us about two months ago to ask about a SR that we had put in a long time ago, which was resolved, and was looking to see if there was a way they could have improved upon the experience, or if we had any suggestions.

An offhand remark we made once about something we didn’t love in 3.0(can’t even remember what it was) to another engineer ended up resulting in several calls that seemed to be aimed at improving their product. I don’t know what’s up with this company, it’s certainly offputting though. I expect a questionaire(which I’m almost positive is discarded) after an event, I don’t expect people to show up for lunch and a tete a tete! I know actual customers whose requests have been incorporated into the product. I’ve never seen such as this, but I think I will remain a loyal customer from here on.

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