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Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 17:14:59 -0500
              <DECTEI-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From:         buchanan@BME1.UTMEM.EDU
Subject:      Re: VMS DECWINDOWS MOTIF 1

I also agree one should not bite the hand that feeds you however, in
the Ultrix world, things are also not as rosy as they could be.  One
year ago, I started buying documentation and distribution for DEC
products listed on the CSLG Ultrix list.  Many of these product require
PAKS.  Others require that Motif be installed.  I still do not have
PAKS for any of these products (except RISC Pascal which I did get by a
mechanism I'm not sure about).  I kept hearing for  the last CSLG year
that 1. Ultrix products do not require PAKS (not true) or that 2.
Ultrix PAKS will be sent to my campus coordinator soon (has not
happened as of a week ago when I last checked).   This means I now have
products I never installed which now have been upgraded (or included in
the Con DIST, or both).  Now I have been hearing for several months
that Ultrix PAKS would be sent with renewal of the CSLG.  Our CSLG
agreement used to expire in March, I understand.  However now I am told
it expired in August.  As near as I can tell, the renewal stuff hasn't
come.  Free or not and, since I spent $2K or so on distributions, they
were not free, without licenses, these products are useless.  Given all
the problems when PAKS were introduced for VMS (I knew about VMS in a
previous life), all of this should have been avoided on the Ultrix side.

Second problem::Ultrix Motif.  I have been waiting through several
releases of Ultrix under the impression from various DEC
representatives that Motif would become the default for Ultrix and all
I have to do is wait.  This has not occurred.  I finally ordered
(through our cumbersome bid procedure) the OSF/Motif developers kit,
which appeared to be the only way to get Motif and thus to use the
layered products which require it.  This order was returned unfilled by
my local DEC sales office with the notation that Motif was a "no
charge" item.  Unfortunately, without the distribution I still couldn't
install it.  I got messages left from 3 different DEC people that "OSF
Motif is on the Ultrix distribution".  As of Ultrix 4.3a, the  most
recent available to me, that is definitely NOT true.  I finally
"borrowed" a motif distribution from someone else, again so I could use
the products I purchased the distributions and documentation for.

Third problem::Campus Service Agreement (CSA).  My local DEC office
denies the existance of this program and I can get no information from
them.  They arranged a nice lunch down on Beale Street with a
representative of DEC's "Desktop" service organization but it soon
became obvious to both of us that what we want is not what he is
selling.  As an authorized Apple service organization, we are generally
geared up for things like the CSA.  Since I feel some people were less
than forthcoming about this item, trying to maintain full service
contracts, we have dropped a significant amount of our DEC maintenance
contracts, opting instead for self maintenance--probably a net loss of
revenue to DEC.

I realize much of this may be beyond the control of the TEI people, but
this kind of stuff, combined with questions about DEC's commitment to
MIPS, questions about OSF1 availability and licensing and Alpha
availability add to the frustrations of dealing with DEC and the TEI
for an Ultrix person--not to mention that much of the TEI (and ESL
particularly) is based upon a computer center-VAX/VMS model which is
minimally appropriate for many of us.  I am sorry if this is
inappropriately critical, but I have held my tongue in public for over
a year, hoping things would get better.  They've gotten worse.  I have
bought 10 DECstation 5000s without talking to a Sun or IBM salesman
since I moved to Memphis almost 2 years ago, but I'm about to get out
my Yellow Pages.

Note that in all of this, I have not complained about the PRICE of anything.

Jack Buchanan, MSEE, MD,
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine
Director, Biomedical Engineering Distributed Computing Research Environment
University of Tennessee, Memphis
Memphis, TN 38163
buchanan@bme1.utmem.edu
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