Folks, I am sorry for your pain, and I wish I could do more to fix it.
Let me see if I can provide some insight that might help.
There is a huge division in IBM between marketing and development.
Passport Advantage is owned by marketing and no one in development nor
technical support has access to it. Marketing jealously guards all
customer information, just as if they were medical records. No one in
support or development can find out what you are licensed for, what you
paid, what discounts you have gotten, anything like that, unless a market
person gives them access or there is a special prior agreement in place.
So when we in development send a product to Passport Advantage , it's like
throwing it over a wall. We cannot alter what happens after that -- only
request that someone on the marketing side of the house make changes when
they are required.
The reason those of you who cannot current find or see NetView 7.1.5 in PA
is NOT because it doesn't exist or has been withdrawn but because according
to the IBM database that PA uses, you aren't licensed for it. What you are
licensed for is TEC, and until the current TEC package is updated (and the
target date for that is this Friday, November 10) PA will not show you
NetView 7.1.5, because it thinks you are not entitled to it. You know
better, I know better, but PA does not. To put it another way, this is not
like ordering a movie from Amazon.com. You can't just search and click on
whatever you want. You can only see what you have been licensed for
already. I hope this makes it clear what is going on.
So Jane, Jeff, and Ray, that's why you cannot download NetView 7.1.5 from
PA yet, while others can. Their customer records must be showing a
separate NetView license while yours does not. But as a technical person I
am only guessing about that. I have no access to those records, nor does
anyone else in support.
And Ray, that's why opening a PMR did not help. PMR's are for technical
issues. The Level 2 guys have no direct access to marketing records
either, and they never have. I was an IBM customer for nine years before
joining the company, and back in the day, even before there was a Support
Center, way back in 1979, when everything was done by phone and through
SE's, you could not get a marketing issue resolved by calling technical
support. They would just tell you that you had to speak to your marketing
representative. And that's why Level 2 told you that you should talk to
the Customer Care folks. They are on the marketing side of the house, while
Level 2 is not. Basically, that's the very same answer you would have
received almost 30 years ago.
I don't want to start a debate on the quality of IBM support. I only want
to point out that there are some kinds of issues which they cannot resolve
because the subject is not within their purview. Anyone may hold the
opinion that IBM Support has gone downhill in recent years, if they think
they have reason to do so, but this incident isn't proof of that. It's
only proof that marketing issues take longer to fix than technical ones.
The only good news is that this issue is currently being addressed by the
right people and should be resolved soon.
Hope this helps,
James Shanks
Level 3 Support for Tivoli NetView for UNIX and Windows
Network Availability Management
Network Management - Development
Tivoli Software, IBM Corp
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