PH7.29 vs PH8.19

[conleys2@nationwide.com]

My 2 cents:

Mike I realize that a known bug list could aid competors in marketing their
product but I would also say that by providing such a listing COGNOS would
also be making a statment that they are more concerned with aiding their
customers as opposed to handicapping them by making each customer go thru
extensive testing, replicating a bug that has been replicated by numerous
other customers.

I have defended COGNOS many times in past 8 or so years even after
receiving my PAGES and PAGES of FAXES from POWERFACTs (For those of you who
are new POWERFACTS was a service that used to be available by phone) that
listed known bugs.  Even with this generally long list, the COGNOS product
has out performed it's competitors in both functionality and performance!
If I were in a decision making process, one of things that I would look at
is does the Company provide information that could potentially stave off a
potential disaster or does that company take the stance that they are more
concerned with letting out information that could hurt their sales.  This
has been one hot topic discussed on this listserv for quite a while!

There was a day when I looked in the paper and it was dominated by
employers needing POWERHOUSE people and I was in big demand now I see one
add per week and the hot demand is POWERBUILDER.

I like the COGNOS product a great deal, but I would also state that I must
go where the work is at!  Ron Z. made some bold changes and really moved
COGNOS in a new direction years ago and now I hope that they wake up before
they are another statistic of poor decision making!

With regards to pricing I think that COGNOS could learn a great deal from
MS.  Yes they pretty near gave away part of their product but look at the
market share they now enjoy!

Also my guess would be that if any company every could attribute a BUG that
COGNOS failed to inform their clients about, but that they knew existed,
that COGNOS would potetnially open themselves up to a law suit in this LAW
SUIT HAPPY place in which we live.

My soapbox for the day and I apologize for to those who have had to
stomach!

Regards Steve





"Armstrong, Mike" <Mike.Armstrong@Cognos.COM> on 10/29/98 09:21:48 AM

Sent by:  "Armstrong, Mike" <Mike.Armstrong@Cognos.COM>

To:   "'Chris Sharman'" <Chris.Sharman@ccagroup.co.uk>
      jpearce@rmi.net
cc:   powerh-l@lists.swau.edu(bcc: Stephen A Conley/User/NWExternal)
Subject:  RE: PH7.29 vs PH8.19




Chris Sharman wrote:
<snip>
Yes, it can waste a lot of time - this is exactly what I've ranted about in
months past. It's not that Powerhouse is any buggier than other people's
software, it's just that Cognos don't seem able or willing to publish the
info fast enough. Digital (now Compaq) for example have long had
information
channels for this: DSN for supported customers, and patch-announcements for
anyone with email: all the "show-stoppers" appear on patch-announcements,
the more minor "gotchas" tend to be DSN only.

If all new-version specific bugs were posted here and/or somewhere more
official (ie the website), we'd all be able to go forward to new versions
faster and with more confidence. Everyone's got bugs, so where's the big
deal in publishing them ?
<snip>

All I can say Chris is that we are trying!
There are currently a number of people in Cognos' Support organization that
are solely responsible for populating our knowledge base on the web. This
knowledge base is generally packed full of useful information about
upgrades. Admittedly we gather much of this information from our Customers
experiences. This means that those that upgrade the weekend after receiving
the tape/CD might experience some difficulties and not find anything useful
on our web site.

Bug information is not generally available since some of our competitors
like to use these lists in sales situations. However, there are plans to
provide RBF (maintenance release) information on the web with lists of bugs
fixed in each RBF.

The idea would be:
Search the website for the problem you are experiencing.
If it's a bug, list the RBF that it is fixed in.
Follow the link to download that RBF.

I realise this isn't new for some s/w companies but I do think it will be a
useful tool for our Customers. Of course, all of this will only be
available
to supported customers.

I hope this will help!

Cheers!

* Mike Armstrong * Senior Systems Engineer * Support Technology Services
* Cognos Worldwide Support ) 3755 Riverside Drive, Ottawa ON Canada K1G
4K9 *(613) 738-1338 Ext. 7538 * Mike.Armstrong@Cognos.COM *


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