back to article Microsoft delivers dedicated 30-minute big Fail support

Microsoft is targeting mission-critical customers who need a response ASAP with a fresh support option that's only available with customized pricing. The company has announced its Premier Mission Critical package, which promises a dedicated team of people to handle your problems within 30 minutes of contact. As part of the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    MS in mission critical ?

    Best laugh I've had all day - stick to the desktop, it's what windaz cement was designed for and leave the serious stuff such as stock markets to 'nix.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      And...

      ...if there is no 'nix equivalent?

      No I'm off to reboot that windows box that's been up for 3.5 years. oh no hold, no need still ticking along fine. (PS we had a NT4 box that stayed up for 6 years without a boot).

      Ver often it's not the platform thats the issue, it's the poorly written software that goes on it. You can have the most stable platform in the world, but if the software craps out once a day, it doesn't matter does it?

      Horses for courses dear child.

      1. Neil Greatorex
        Grenade

        NT4 box up for 6 years

        But it was just powered up and doing nothing.

        As any fule kno (or any admin with NT4 experience) it was the addition of applications or tasks that made NT4 as stable as a two legged cow...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Netbackup

        At my previous company I ran some NetBackup servers on NT4, they stayed up between powerdowns, typically three to six months apart. They also did a lot of work, but they were on a very stable build of NT4, used proper hardware (proliant and storagetek) and were properly administered.

      3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        NT box up for 6 years without a reboot ?

        Shame on you for not properly updating that box !

        Because if you were following proper MS patching schedules, it would be rebooting at least twice a week - or more when the patches were faulty.

        6 years without a patch ? That box probably accounts for .01% of worldwide spam.

        Congrats !

    2. JDX Gold badge
      Thumb Down

      re: MS in mission critical ?

      Oh grow up.

      An individual server is not _supposed_ to run for years without a reboot. You're supposed to have backups so you _can_ take your server offline for maintenance (hardware, OS, or your own software updates) without affecting the service.

  2. Narg
    FAIL

    No good support is cheap...

    Far too many people think that business computing is free. It's not. No matter how you mix it you have to pay to play.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    in other news...

    "Linux For Dummies" now comes with an install disk which takes 30 minutes to install...

  4. Jean-Luc
    Joke

    One of the first signed customers is...

    ...inhouse. The Hotmail team signed up to fix issues with its pesky new deployment.

    Other internal prospects are said to be evaluating.

  5. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    That's going to be costly..

    That's all I've got to say. Given the prices I've heard of companies paying to call in and then get put on hold, this is going to be REALLY expensive. And agreed with AC, I would not use Microsoft products in a mission critical environment.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Actually, it had better be costly

      I hope it will cost an arm and a leg.

      That way, when the inevitable screw-up occurs, MS will have heavyweight, top-dollar-paying customers screaming down their ears and the true, appalling cost of MS software will become apparent.

      After one or two of those, management will have a chance to become desensitized with MS and maybe finally switch over to another platform that was built for security and robustness.

      Mission-critical used to exclude MS as a matter of course, back when true IT engineers were still listened to, but that was before the rise of PowerPoint management. Now, you have Windows for Warships. If that does not send a shiver up your spine, then you are part of the sheep.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Pascal

        Mission critical used to exclude Unix, it used to exclude Minicomputers, mission critical used to only run on Mainframe. Times change, new but unreliable or unproven systems, over time, become mature and reliable. Windows NT 3.1 server is not Windows 2008 server, having said that, we still have mainframe guys at work who bleat on about anything critical being run "off host".

  6. JC 2
    Grenade

    @ No good support is cheap

    Businesses tend to create their own problems. If they just stuck with the same software instead of being tricked into upgrading because someone told them they needed "support", they'd hardly ever need support.

    Do not run newer MS software, let them debug it over several years and a large knowledge base has been built and by that I mean in the community, not merely a few webpages on a MS' site. Be our beta-testers on your own dime, I'm all for that!

  7. Eduard Coli
    Gates Horns

    Give it over now

    So M$ gets to charge you an unspecified price for the right to beg them to fix bugks that they themselves placed in your already expensive M$ software?

    So how much is it to get them to stop blaming other vendors when and given M$ product craps itself?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Err...

      How much do you think Unix or zOS or _supported_ linux costs?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Customer pays...

    Isn't it wonderful the way the customer has to pay to fix Microsoft's problems? And if they refuse to pay, its spend hours searching here and there for information? MS: Thanks for your money, now go fuck yourself off...

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