Unless I am mistaken they do offer software only contracts. I've seen them on Tech Data's price listing. They are generally less than half of the full service contracts. Jeff Binkley ASA Network Computing U>I think Brian is on the right track here. Perhaps 3COM can split their U>service contracts into 2 categories - firmware download only, and full U>support with download and telephone support. U>Those of us new to the platform (myself included) might benefit from U>the convenience of knowing that phone support is available 24x7 when U>you're staring at a box not taking calls at 2AM. But once you get the U>hang of TC and know how to troubleshoot these things on your own (or U>at least with the added help of those on this list), you can drop the U>tel support, and just pay for code updates. U>Does any of this matter to those on this list that are complaining U>about 3COM's lack of timely response to code issues? Probably not. U>Should 3COM redirect it's efforts to resolving these issues? Yep. U>Should they perhaps head-up a small team (1 person) to field code U>enhancement and bug fix requests, both from an email/web input area on U>the 3COM ISP pages, but also through monitoring of this list and the U>totalcontol newsgroups? Absolutely. 3COM may already be doing this U>"behind the scenes", quietly tracking and logging this stuff, but it's U>apparent that the people who need to know the most that it's being U>done and being worked on, the ISP customers, don't know that someone U>has acknowledged the problem and it has been placed into an U>engineering queue. U>I think that things like this would greatly improve 3COM's image among U>it's ISP customers, and even more so if they acted expediently on U>these issues that trouble so many on this list. Give the telephone U>support staff access to the database created as a result of these U>pages (hell, give us access to these pages as well, even WITHOUT a U>contract). Tie the ER/SR releases to the database, so it's easier to U>identify which bug is fixed with which release. And most importantly, U>of allowing us to view this database to obtain the status a confirmed U>of bug and it's up-to-date progress in getting resolved would be U>tremendous benefit. To know that someone is actually WORKING on Jeff's U>SNMP issue by simply searching the database is comforting (knowing that U>it will be fixed QUICKLY is even better). Some of this status U>information may already be in the 3KB, but a dedicated database for TC U>code issues and status reports would be really great. U>Scot U>NJAccess CMPQwk 1.42 9999 - To unsubscribe to usr-tc, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe usr-tc" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message.