[Zope] [LONG REPLY!] FW: Question about quality of Digicool s upport

Dunigan, Craig craig.dunigan@esker.com
Wed, 11 Apr 2001 12:18:36 -0500


Apologies to the list for cc'ing them, go ahead and delete if you're not
interested.  I just want the Digi-guys to see this.  Darren, please forward
this to Jason, as our <expletive> Exchange server and this <expletive>
Outlook client won't let me see his email address.  Try getting support from
*them*!

I work in the marketing department of a small multinational software
company.  I can promise you that I see nothing but "you get what you pay
for" people.  Ours is a public company, so profit reports and current stock
price are the only things that command real attention.  I mention all this
so that you can see that Open Source is a foreign concept to this world.  

In the marketing department, I run both our commercial web site and our
intranet.  Being a multi-site company, we have to run our intranet over a
frame relay to some sites, over VPN to others.  One key feature of the
intranet, raised by our CEO, was that sales and other personnel had to have
immediate access to the most recent marketing material, and that all
locations had to access the *same* material, and do so transparently.  A
second key feature, raised by the R&D dept., was that, to enable sharing of
development information during coding a new product, each programmer had to
have complete control over his own documents, ability to post those
documents for secure, world-wide viewing, and that certain senior developers
had to be able to easily manage subsections of the site without jeopardizing
the marketing control over their material.  We had a senior developer do an
exhaustive review of available products, and none fit the bill as well as
Zope.  Since I have to run the thing now, I can't say enough about how
effective its been.  Most of the site has been simply write and forget; it
just runs.  Having had FrontPage/IIS experience, I can't even begin to
describe what a relief *that* is.  

We address the world-wide transparent access to the same material using a
Zope product called ZEO.  If anything, I'd sing even higher praises for ZEO
than it's parent product.  This thing is just amazing.  I have one database
server backed up daily on our LAN, and four remote HTTP servers across the
world all connecting back to it, serving HTML generated on the fly from that
back-end.  I swear to you that the end user can't tell the difference.  Even
though it's *generating* the page over a long circuit, not serving local
static files, it's no less responsive than a local web server.  We address
the programmers' control over their own documents, and senior programmers'
control over sections of the site, with the fine built-in Zope ability to
delegate administrative tasks safely with an excellent and reasonably
fine-grained security model.  

As for Digital Creations support, I do have to tell a story.  The
aforementioned senior developer who initially recommended Zope also did the
"alpha" version of the intranet, then left the company.  I'm an Apache and
Perl/CGI guy, never did OOP in my life, and suddenly they gave *me* this
site, built in a purely OO environment, running an OO database server
written in an OO scripting language.  Ugh.  So I looked at his site, and it
looked more like "proof of concept" than even alpha.  I thought I was in
deep trouble, so I too looked at paid support options, and frankly, was
shocked.  My boss almost fell over when I told her the price Digital
Creations charges for paid support.  Not that I don't think you're worth it,
but I thought "Egad! Can't you have a lower level for people on small
budgets?"  I was soon to learn to think better of the Digi-guys.  Anyway,
there was no way I could pry that kind of cash out of our accounting
department's iron clutches, ever aware of profit reports and balance
statements as they are.  So I felt kind of stuck with the mailing list.
I've seen Open Source support before, and I have to say that I've always
gotten at least a response to newsgroup questions and the like.  But there's
never any guarantee of timeliness, and the answers might not always be
helpful, although for the most part I have found what I needed.  I was
uncertain that "for the most part" would please the "you get what you pay
for" people.  Then I started reading the Zope mail list in earnest, and
found out that it truly is the "lower level for small budgets" option, not
just a haphazard response system like the newsgroups I'd seen.  I have never
seen *paid* support answer with the speed and accuracy that these volunteers
do.  Buy the paid support if you need it to appease the corporate-types, to
hand-hold the non-techies, and because I'd love to see the Digi-guys
continue to produce incredible software.  But you can get all your answers
on the list.  Hell, the chief architect of the ZODB itself, the magical guts
of Zope, Jim Fulton, a fellow with a depth of knowledge that will astound
you, answers mailing list questions.  Where else can you get direct access
to people with that kind of know-how?  Not at a commercial company.
Certainly not at mine, our Chief Software Engineers would rather be boiled
in oil than answer customer questions; that's what we hire Tech Support guys
for.  That raises another point.  Keep in mind when you buy support from
Digital Creations, you are buying access to the actual developers of the
product, not some roomful of "customer service reps" who are trained only
enough to answer basic questions and sound nice on the phone.  These guys
can and will answer questions about why the thing was designed the way it
was, freely acknowledge design shortcomings, and then tell you how to work
around them.  

To address the "knowledge of the university environment" question, I think
that Zope gets used in many universities.  Certainly I see names on the list
from lots of them, asking questions and giving answers.  That means you have
direct access to many, many people who are intimately familiar with your
environment, and who know Zope almost as well as the Digi-guys.  I know that
sharing specialized information is what our developers do with Zope, and
that has to fit the educational model at least somewhat.  We rely on Zope to
help develop our products by sharing development documents, to help sell our
products by giving salespeople current marketing material to hand-off to
customers, and to communicate HR information to employees worldwide.  I have
had many questions about Zope answered on the list before I had even thought
to ask them.  It's fantastic.  Do not make the mistake I did, and assume
that all Open Source support is the same.  It isn't.  These guys are
top-notch.  

Do it.  Use Zope.  Buy the support.  You won't regret it, IMHO.  

Craig Dunigan
Web Programmer
Esker Software -- Extending the Reach of Information
ph 608.273.6000
http://www.esker.com
mailto:craig.dunigan@esker.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: addyd@unk.edu [mailto:addyd@unk.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 7:48 PM
> To: zope@zope.org
> Subject: [Zope] FW: a Question about quality of Digicool support
> 
> 
> Hi All,
> I subscribe to a University & College Webmasters List. I 
> mentioned Zope in
> response to a question today which seemed to elicit the 
> following message.
> I post it here, because I feel that he will find more people 
> who can speak
> to the quality of Digicool support (including Digicool personel
> themselves).
> 
> I have to admit that I have not yet taken the Zope plunge 
> myself, but have
> been following its maturation process for over a year. I am 
> philosophically
> behind Open Source in general and Python/Zope in particular. 
> I think that
> the attitude displayed in this letter is the sort of thing that
> Zope/Digicool will have to know how to answer/overcome in 
> order to achieve
> widespread success. I feel that universities are a great 
> place for Zope to
> focus their efforts as it is from there that students (and 
> staff) move out
> into the "real world". Encouraging Zope adoption and 
> implimentation THERE
> could be one of the wisest places in which to invest support 
> (and prove to
> be a great test bed for Zope development).
> 
> Here is the message. I leave it to you to decide whether it 
> would be best
> to Cc this list with your replies to him. I (personally) 
> would like to see
> the responses too.
> (CMS refers to "Content Management Systems"):
> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::
> 
> After evaluating several CMS products, we started getting 
> really excited
> about Zope (we actually started recreating the site in Zope 
> just to prove
> how easy it is).  So far so good, but now that more of the college is
> hearing about our work, we're being asked to take a look at 
> commercial CMS
> products as well.
> 
> There's a faction on campus that feels that "you get what you 
> pay for" and
> the open source nature of Zope makes those folks nervous.  
> Unfortunately,
> I'm having a hard time identifying commercial CMS products that aren't
> marketed as "e-business platforms".  Has anyone had any 
> experience with a
> company that makes a CMS product and also understands the university
> environment?  I would be thrilled if I could find a sales rep that is
> willing to hold our hand and take their time with us, and can 
> be patient
> with the less technical folks on our staff.
> 
> Basically my feeling is that the only thing that could make 
> me want to use
> something other than Zope is 1) Excellent customer service, 
> 2) A company
> that really understands the university environment and can make our
> non-technical staff see the benefit of their product, 3) A 
> company that can
> make the "you get what you pay for" faction happy by 
> presenting itself as
> being in it for the long haul.
> 
> Does anyone have any experience with Digicool's commercial 
> Zope support?
> This may actually represent the best of both worlds.
> 
> Also, if any of you are actually using a CMS now (commercial or open
> source), please let us know as it will help us guide our 
> decision making.
> 
> Thanks,
> Jason Wehmhoener
> Web Coordinator
> De Anza College
> http://www.deanza.fhda.edu
> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
> Darren Addy
> Web Specialist
> Information Technology Services
> University of Nebraska at Kearney
> addyd@unk.edu
> 
> 
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