[NCLUG] local end-user support

[Chad Perrin]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 06:04:15PM -0700, Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 02:16:55PM -0700, Chad Perrin wrote:
> >> single them out for a plug, tummy.com is local and offers this sort of
> >> thing I believe, but I'm sure there are others.
> >
> >I wasn't under the impression tummy.com provided direct end-user support
> 
> Thanks for the plug.  :-)
> 
> We do definitely offer end-user support, but mostly it is to end users who
> have a bunch of machines in a data-center or business office.  I know that
> Jamie at IT-Works provides more "home user" type support of Windows and has
> recently mentioned helping people with Linux.

To me, "end users" are the folks using a desktop system to access the
servers in the data center, or the individual workers at their desks at
the business office -- and not so much the sysadmins of machines in the
data center or "IT Resource Managers" and netadmins in business offices.
The word "end" in "end user" is key to my understanding of the term.


> 
> Back to the original point of this post...  Anyone else remember when the
> Linux community got one of the big magazine's "best of" awards for "best
> technical support", several years in a row ISTR.

I remember such an award.  I don't recall several years in a row, but I
do recall the open source community at large receiving a best technical
support award at least once.


> 
> A mechanic doesn't typically sell their services to car tweaker.  Their
> customers are the people who don't have the time, skill, or inclination to
> think about those things.  Geek Squad doesn't sell their services to the
> people who want to fix it themselves, they sell it to the people who don't
> want to think about it.  Which is mostly your Mac and Windows users.

True.  I was just curious about the availability of people who don't like
to fiddle with the stuff under the hood, but might still want to use an
OS from sources other than Apple or Microsoft.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, to an RIAA executive: "Are you headed to junior
high schools to round up the usual suspects?"