[Dovecot] Commercial support

[Chris Green]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2005 at 02:07:04AM +0300, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> 
> You should probably reply privately to me so this list won't get 
> spammed.
> 
I'm replying on list because I personally won't be wanting commercial
support but I do work in IT (I have since 1970 or thereabouts) and
have both provided and used commercial support many times over the
years.


> So, assume that Dovecot v1.0 will really be stable, will have real 
> documentation, and the support isn't going to be completely in hands of 
> just one or two guys.
> 
> I think there would basically be two types of support available:
> 
> 1. Basic support
> 
> Guaranteed replies to questions within some time interval.
>  - what response times? a few days?

I'd want *much* better than 'a few days', for E-Mail support I'd
expect an immediate (probably automatic) acknowledgement and a
response from a human being within 24 hours.  From the user's point of
view anything more than a few hours is a bit of a disaster.  The
response *may* be the "we're working on it" but in many cases I'd
expect it to be a (fairly simple) answer or some questions to find out
more and/or some tests.

>  - phone support needed?

Much less necessary in my opinion, if the E-Mail or Web response is
quick enough I prefer it to 'phone support.

>  - what would you be willing to pay for it?
> 
Yes, if E-Mail/dovecot was a critical service.


> 2. Mission critical support
> 
> For those who *really* can't afford any unexpected downtime, and so 
> would be willing to pay more for quick response times. Problems divided 
> to different categories (eg. normal, high, critical) with different 
> response times.
>  - what response times? a few days for normal, about one day for high, 
> less for critical?

Again in my opinion very few people would be happy with any sort of
computer support where the response time is 'a few days'.  Unless your
support system is severly overloaded you should always have the
capacity to respond almost immediately.  If the support queue is
stacked up such that response takes 'a few days' it means that it's
going to stack up more and response is going to get steadily worse!

You need a way to manage the 90% of support questions which are going
to take very little time (and thus it's quickest simply to respond
to 'now') while having a way to manage the longer term ones so that
they don't delay the bulk of questions but on the other hand don't get
forgotten.

The 'Mission critical support' would (could?) only guarantee that the
customer would get a (near enough) immediate response, it can't
guarantee a resolution of the problem.  A problem that takes two days
to sort out takes two days to sort out, if you've got too many of them
then support lead times get larger and larger and no amount of
prioritising the support system is going to get them fixed quicker.

All you can do for 'Mission critical support' is guarantee to respond
quickly and you mustn't in the process of doing that stop responding
to other support requests.

>  - sanctions?

I don't personally think that's a good idea, provide good responsive
support and your customers will be happy.

>  - customized modifications, kept up-to-date for new Dovecot versions?

I'd fight shy of this, configuration management and such could become
a nightmare.

>  - what would you be willing to pay for it?
> 
There are probably two categories of user:-

    Personal (and maybe SoHo) users who will probably be talking in
    the two or three dollars/euros/pounds per month sort of amount as
    a maximum.  Maybe an annual fee of ten or twenty would be better.

    Commercial users to whom a few hundred a year will not be
    excessive.

> I'm not sure if there should be "outsourced email server maintenance" 
> option too.

What do you mean by this exactly?

>             Or maybe some really low cost support for a limited number 
> of questions. Any other ideas, suggestions or tips? Did I miss 
> something important?
> 
You probably need to think quite hard about what the front page of
your web site looks like and how the support works from there, it's
the first place customers will look.

> And finally, would you like to have a job related to Dovecot? :)

Not just yet!  Though if/when I retire from a 9 to 5 programming job
doing support by E-Mail would be quite an attractive proposition.

-- 
Chris Green (chris at areti.co.uk)

    "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."