Monday, December 3, 2007

Symantec Support for Domino R8

As a BP, and previous manager of alliance partners, I have some understanding for Lotus partners.
But, sometimes in our madness for efficiency, we neglect the simple premise:
The customer deserves to be helped first and foremost.

All I need to know is does Symantec support R8 yet in their Anti-virus program and backup-exec agent program. Simple right? NOT!

Having loved Norton Utilities and products since before Peter sold them, I tend to give Symantec the benfit of the doubt and still use their products in various forms.

One of my clients uses backup exec(I used to use this 4 mergers back before Veritas had it). And while planning for the migration to 8.0.1 we were checking if the backup agents, and server AV work with it.
Normally simple enough but as I could not find the informationm on the Syamntec website, I tried their online chat.

Ok so I was #11 or something in queue, took about 20 minutes to a half hour to chat with someone.

As they could not help me or had no idea what Lotus Domino was or if they support it(Thanks Samson of Symantec Chat) he sent me to their SMB sales line.

Called the 800# and spoke to somoene who I could barely understand and I have worked with many people around the world, evidently not all of them.

She told me she could not help me, on the sales line, I should call tech support, gave me the number.

Called tech support 800 #. No product no support. Huh? Without a licence code or some other method they are unable to log a call for me, even though all I want is to know the R8 support.
Tried to send me back to sales. I reminded him they sent me to him.
He apologized but could not help me.

I suggested I would have to seek a new vendor. After that statement I was sent to some one named Shann who was very helpful, but alas, could only confirm what was on the site, namely 6.x and 7.x.

And told me to check when it would be available at their site with a URL of http://www.symantec.com/business/support/

Thanked her and hung up.

Now, maybe if I was a Symantec BP I could get more insight, but to be honest R8 has been out a for a few months now and their site should let people know it supports it or it will in Q1? Hopefully?

See you in Orlando and you can bet who I am going to see in the product showcase.

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