December 21, 2000, 11:12 AM — I know how frustrating it is to use software that locks up, but I still take exception to your damning review of Shomiti Systems' Surveyor 3.1 (see review).
On one hand you seem to say it is an excellent product, but on the other you say it "isn't yet ready for takeoff" because it has problems running on Windows 2000. But everything has problems on Win 2000 - including Win 2000!
Yes, I agree it would be helpful if Surveyor 3.1 ran better on that platform. It would also be helpful if Surveyor had Simple Mail Transfer Protocol mail. But neither are "killer" requirements for a packet capture/probe tool.
My organization uses an older version of Surveyor, and based on your glowing review of its other features, I am ordering an upgrade to Surveyor. I wish Win 2000 were as stable as Surveyor has been for us.
Luis Zapata
Senior systems engineer
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Rockville, Md.
Your story "Exchange 2000 looks to be apps magnet" takes a third-party perspective. As a customer, here are my views.
My organization uses Lotus Domino/Notes as our messaging platform. We did testing on Exchange 2000 and felt that developing groupware applications would require a range of skills from our in-house developers. We also felt that coupling Exchange and other technologies such as Active Directory and Internet Information Server made administration and maintenance complicated. And we missed having an administration client as in Notes.
While I agree that Exchange 2000 is a major improvement over Exchange 5.5, I still think it needs a lot of minor enhancements to improve its usability by administrators and in-house developers.
Tarek Ahmed Farouk IT consultant
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
In your Oct. 16 issue a reader asked Dr. Intranet a question about an ArcServe problem. I had the same problem and got the same dismal support from Computer Associates. I had the same bad luck with support from Legato for our Unix backup. Nothing is more infuriating than tech support through an answering machine or e-mails that go unanswered. You can buy extra support, but that just gets you somebody's personal answering machine or an operator that connects you to an answering machine.
I no longer buy products that don't have first-rate support. Before I purchase software, I call the tech support line a few times to check it out. When magazines rate software, they rarely test the tech support. To me, the quality and timeliness of tech support figure into the total cost of ownership for the product.
Ed Seger
Laurel, Md.
