Subject: Digital machines and Company: disgust and despair ....

From: Mrigank <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 95 16:16:34 +0530

Hi!

Sorry folks for wasting the band width, but i am pretty desperate now. There
seem to be little option for me. I am writting this totally disgusted with
Digital Equipment(India) ltd. 

We have ordered a few w/s from digital. They sell for, whatever reasons,
through Value Added Resellers. We have problem right from that point. the
solution sought and promised and what we get are different. The repeated
reminders to either of them have helped anly getting ocaisonal assurances
(obviously false ones). 

What i am addressing here is is this is how Digital behaves generally or
Digital Indial is different ? This might help us in deciding for future
purchase and advicing others [ I am advising a few other molecular labs on
their purcahses].  I am putting it here as many of you must have delt with such
companies.

I am enclosing a letter i wrote to VP DEIL. 

If someone out there has any solution pls. oblige.

Mrigank

______________________________________________________________________________

Mr. Bhaskar Parmanik, Vice President      Dated : December 28, 1994
Digital Equipment (India) Ltd.
Digital Park
Suburb II Stage
Yeswantpur, Banglore 22.

Dear Mr. Parmanik,

This is  in regard  to our purchase of Digital Alpha Workstations.
The whole  order  was  processed  through  Digital's  Value  Added
Resellers APTech.   There had been plethora of problems right from
the beginning.   We  have time  to time apprised these problems to
both APTech  as well  as Digital.   Unfortunately the solutions so
far have  not reached us and even response to our queries had been
far from satisfactory.  They are not even acknowledged duly, leave
apart a  prompt reply.   {\em  This should  be borne  in mind that
seven DEC 3000/300 LX machines were installed on 25.7.94 i.e. more
than five  months ago  and DEC  3000/600 was  installed on 12.8.94
i.e. more  than four  and a  half months ago.}  Still due to these
pending problems  we have  not been  able to  use  these  machines
optimally which  not only hamper the work for which these machines
were bought  but also  implies an  effective loss on warranty.  We
would appreciate  if each  of the  problems is  addressed  in  the
following perspective separately.

1.   If at all a solution exists with you?
2.   If yes, than what is the time frame to get the solution?
3.   If no, than where does it exists?
4.   If answer  to `3'  is `not  known' please  explicitly mention
     that.

I am dividing the problems in three parts.

#    Problems regarding not getting the solution we sought.

     1.   We wanted  a solution  of the  kind where we can use one
          machine (3600)  as a  main compute box and sophisticated
          display system  and other  for development  and  routine
          work.     Our  main  application  involved  running  and
          developing of  graphics software  using OpenGL.  We have
          insisted this right at the time of placing the order and
          were even  contemplating to go for PXG board despite its
          inferior performance.   Since  at that  time ZLX  boards
          were not supporting OpenGL.  Based on an announcement of
          Digital that  by March  ZLX board will support OpenGL we
          decided to  go for  that.   We have  also asked about HX
          card (which  is there  in 300  LX  machines)  to  APTech
          representative and  he like  any other salesman said `no
          problem'. However,  now we  have discovered that HX does
          not support  OpenGL. {\em  This must  be noted  that our
          idea was  not to  boast that  we have eight workstations
          but was  to actually  use them  for our purpose. In this
          regard we  feel being  cheated as  we have  placed  this
          order  against  a  very  competitive  offer  from  other
          party.}

     2.   We have  ordered a  table top DAT with the understanding
          that we  should be  able to use the same with any of the
          machines.   However, the one we got as a cable which can
          fit only  3600 SCSI  slot.  Both APTech and Mr. Sukhdeep
          Singh of  Digital have  promised us  a solution  to this
          long ago  but till  date the  solution remains with them
          only.

#    Problems pending with Digital

     1.   The CSLG  licences PAKs  have yet  to arrive for reasons
          best known to Digital.  It is surprising to see that how
          was it  conceived to have a machine and software without
          PAKs and  still use  it.   This reduces  the machines to
          ornaments.  Though some of the licences were provided on
          temporary basis but still the complete range of software
          that we  want to  use, we  are not able to use.  We have
          been listening from July that PAKs have been despatched.
          One really  wonders by  what mean  they have  been sent.
          Could some  knowledgeable person  in DEIL  elaborate  on
          this?

     2.   We  have   observed  some  problems  with  3600  machine
          already. The  machine periodically  blinks  and  reboots
          itself.   It has  been notified  to local  DEIL  office.
          However, we are yet to get a solution to this.

     3.   We have  time and  again  asked  Digital  representative
          about not  been able  to use numbers represented by more
          than 32  bit word.  A possible solution suggested was to
          use double  words.  However, this posses a question that
          by default  we are loosing on the accuracy with floating
          point numbers, that is expected of a 64 bit machine.

     4.   DECnet/OSI and  NAS which  were explicitly  ordered with
          the system  are not  supported on  the version  of OSF/1
          that we have. Therefore, we cannot use these software.

     5.   We have  not been  able to use X server running on other
          OSF machine  which implies  that  we  cannot  use  these
          machines as  display boxes.  This is probably due to the
          fact that we have not been able to run DECnet.

     6.   DEC spin  does not  support 24  bit planes.   This means
          that it  cannot be run on 3600 machines which has ZLX-M1
          card.

#    We have  sought some  suggestions and assistance from Digital
     but have  not got  any satisfactory answer to them.  They are
     as follows

     1.   We wanted  to find  out if  we can  use the CD-ROM drive
          installed on  3600 machine  running OSF/1  from  OpenVMS
          boxes.   If we  can do  so then  we would like to go for
          procurement of OpenVMS and its layered products CD-ROM.

     2.   We wanted  to find  out if we can get any suggestions or
          assistance to  install PVM3 or HenCE this will enable us
          to use  workstations that  we have  as parallel  virtual
          machines.

We would appreciate an early and prompt reply and action from your
side and  also would  like to  know that  {\em if  is it  a normal
practice of  a reputed company like Digital or for some reasons we
have  been   singled  out.}     We  also  want  to  find  out  the
possibilities of  placing  order  with  Digital  directly  without
having to go through any VAR.

Thanking you,

Sincerely

(Mrigank)
_____________________________________________________________________________

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/Mrigank                             \/ Phone  +91 172 690557               \
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