Smalltalk Systems Support Policy
Smalltalk Systems wants to help you build applications
quickly and get the most from our products. Our
technical support staff are experts on our products, and many are developers themselves.
We understand that sometimes time is of the essence, or
you just need more guidance then our manuals and examples provide. We’ve worked hard
to put together a series of support plans to help you as promptly and as thoroughly as you
need.
Thanks for choosing Smalltalk Systems!
Summary
For bug reports, per-incident calls, to schedule One on
One Support or to sign up for a subscription plan please call 503-612-9165 between
8:30am and 2:30pm PST.
We offer free installation support for 30 days following
your first call. You must have your valid serial number to receive this support.
What if I need additional help on using your
Products?
Once the product is installed and up and running you may
have additional questions or concerns about how to use or program our products. Based on
your needs you can select from the following support options.
All products come with 30 days of installation support. Technical support is provided
via telephone, fax, newsgroup and e-mail to customers with support subscriptions. If you
have a support contract, your support requests will be treated with the highest priority.
When purchasing support, the number of support subscriptions must
match the number of licenses purchased. We offer support on an all or nothing basis (e.g.,
if you buy 10 licenses, you must buy 10 support subscriptions or one project subcription
or none at all). Support offerings and pricing are subject to change.
| Description |
Newsgroup |
E-mail |
Phone |
Fax |
Upgrades1 |
Price |
Project Subscription
(20 developers, 3 contacts, per product) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
$2500 |
Subscription
(per developer) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
$295+$100* |
Pay-As-You-Go
(per incident) |
No |
No |
1 |
No |
No |
$80 |
Installation support
(30 day) |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
N/A2 |
| Registered Customer |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
N/A3 |
| Evaluation |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
N/A |
* $295 for one component, and $100 for each additional
component for the same developer.
1 minor upgrades and bug fixes
2 installation support is included with the purchase of a component
3 minor upgrades and bug fixes included with purchase of a component
Customers with support contracts can generally expect
responses within 24 hours (48 hours for some questions of a more complex or multi-part
nature). Support resources are always allocated preferentially to customers with
support contracts.
Include our support form with
the product name, version and platform with any fax, e-mail or newsgroup support requests.
In addition, please be sure to provide the details on your operating system and/or development environment. Your questions should be concise and
restricted to a single incident or request. If you have any code which may be relevant to
the problem please include it. Example code that illustrates the problem is especially
welcome (and often leads to a quicker resolution).
Limited no charge support is available via e-mail and
newsgroups. This support is provided on a time available basis. Note that we do not
guarantee responses to no charge support questions. If your question is time critical and
you need an answer, you need to sign up for a support subscription.
Periodic minor maintenance releases are available for free
to all registered customers. If you think that you have come across a bug, make sure that
you are using the most current version of the respective product.
If your needs are more immediate then you may want to
consider our per-incident phone support. Our support staff is available to you via phone
for $80.00 per incident for the first half-hour. The Per-Incident support charge is based
on a half-hour call, beyond the first half-hour you
will be billed at $80.00 per half-hour. We accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
We offer a unique service for those who feel they may
require a greater level of guidance. One on One support offers you the chance to talk with
one of our technical support experts and let them guide you through the programming of one
of our products. Another unique aspect of this service
is that it is pre-scheduled, this insures that you can schedule the expert help you need
for as long as you need it. The charge is $100.00 an hour. To schedule One on One support
please contact our office. You will be asked for the
product, version and platform on which you need help. Be prepared to provide a brief
description of what you are looking for from the session.
What if I think I’ve found a bug?
Smalltalk Systems appreciates the help of our users in
identifying bugs in our software. Bugs are a inconvenience to all of us, but unfortunately
the reality of software development. We accept bug reports via
e-mail, fax or phone.
If you are the first to provide a bug fix which is used in
one of our products then you will receive a free upgrade for that product.
Preventative Support
We want you to be successful developing your applications,
but we know your time is critical, so we want to save you the time of having to call for
support. To this end we are putting together a series of preventative support options,
which will help answer your questions before they
arise. We plan to take full advantage of the Internet and to exploit its technology to
bring you the most innovated preventative support options of any software company.
We have a news server to provide support for our products
and maintain a dialog with customers. It is at:
news://nt1.netsmart.com/sts.smalltalk
Click on the line above and your browser will access a
server at our web site. In Netscape 3.0, remember to click on the check mark to the right
of the news server listing to make this newsgroup stay in your news reader. This news
group is not available on your ISP's news server, but it is publicly available on our
server.
Our developers will read the newsgroup several times a
day. We want to know what you think about our products and what problems you're trying to
solve.
If the news group isn't suitable for some reason, ask your
questions by email. Please do try the newsgroup. We think it's better than email because
other programmers may benefit from your question and our answer. If you need to, send
email to support@smalltalksystems.com.
Please submit all support requests with the following
information along with a description of the problem and your expectations, steps to
reproduce the problem, detailed error messages, and code samples as appropriate. Please
include contents of the VisualAge Debugger stack trace (in the debugger select
Stack | Copy Stack Trace Text) if applicable.
Send support requests to support@smalltalksystems.com.
Priorities are:
Low: minor impact, resolution desired but not required
Standard: resolution needed, but can continue working on project
High: work substantially impaired, deadline is near, etc.
Critical: system down, deadline imminent, etc.
Format:
Product name/version :
Serial # : (only via email - do not post on forum)
Support # : (only via email - do not post on forum)
OS Name/Version :
VisualAge Version :
Priority : Low/Standard/High/Critical
For example:
Product name/version : VA Assist Pro V5.0
Serial # : evaluation
Support # : none
OS Name/Version : Windows NT 4.0
VisualAge Version : 5.0
Priority : Standard
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