While there's lots of people who work in the various PSC departments who post and participate in these forums, is there a single point of contact for developers (besides Tech Support?)
PEG?
PEG is mostly ABL users, not Progress Official Reps. Also, there's only a limited number of Progress people who post there, particularly compared to the number of PSC people who post here on PSDN.
What I've been running into is situations which basically devolve into a lack of communication w/in PSC itself.
What I was wondering is, if there is a single person that was in charge of developer relations? If there was, then maybe talking to such a person would minimize the hit-and-miss aspect of talking to the individual PSC people that get things done.
He should speak for himself, but I have the impression that Salvador Vinals is about as close a person to that role that there is.
Which said, I don't know that PSC conceives of it having such a role defined in the way in which you might be defining it.
He should speak for himself, but I have the impression that Salvador Vinals is about as close a person to that role that there is.
My impression is Salvador's the ABL guy.
There's a few other DB engine guys I've talked to.
I have no idea who, if anyone, is the contact for Sonic, Apama, et al. Then again, I don't deal with those products, so that's not surprising. But it'd be nice to have some single person that could point me in the right direction.
Which said, I don't know that PSC conceives of it having such a role defined in the way in which you might be defining it.
Which is one reason for asking.
Any developer who is not a reseller is a user. PEG is a user group pretty much all of whom are developers. TMH is correct, there is no concept of developer relations as it appears you mean.
As long as you don't mind the answer! For any of
us on the OE side, I think Salvador is a good starting point.
Unless he chips in and says otherwise, of course!
I have a strong perception that there is a desire on the part of PSC management to make a more unified offering to the OpenEdge community. The other products can and should be sold on their own, but they need a different sort of packaging and presentation when being sold to most of the OE side of things. I know that is a concern and a direction, but timetable is something else.
I understand that point, but on the other hand no single-point of contact means that people have figure out who to talk to on their own, and that's never good.
Speaking of which - at Exchange 2006 I ran into a PSC sales-rep who had a lot to say about the separation of divisions with the sales force. If a sales rep dug up a lead for a product in a different division than the one they represented, they had to turn the lead over to someone else rather than making the sale (and commission) themselves.
This person wasn't happy...hopefully this'll change in the future.
Not to be
intentionally rude, but considering how little many OE reps know
about OE, do you really want them trying to sell Apama? Some kind
of finder's percentage might be appropriate, but I have no idea how
the reps commission structure works.
Well, frankly, single point of contact or not, I can't say that the atmosphere is one of openness and soliciting opinion. There are "channels" like ERS and the PSDN forums, but individuals aren't generally putting themselves in a position that says "talk to me" except to selected individuals.
I hear you about the apparent lack of interaction. We've got some here in PSDN, but more would be a big help.
As for the ERS, it desperately needs to be upgraded. It's slow, hard to find things, you can't find modifications after a point in time, only since you last logged in, and if you log in twice - forget it. There's no email updates from it either, and apparently the attitude is there never will be. (see thread http://www.psdn.com/library/thread.jspa?messageID=4852ዴ)
In other words, us developers have to do a lot more work than is really necessary to work with this system, and the entrenched position is it's not going to change. This doesn't give the impression that PSC is a cutting-edge kind of technology company when they use web-site designs dating back to 1997 or so.
It seems to me that there are two things that you might like, which are not there today. One of these is a single point of contact for information. I suppose that it could be argued that PSDN is intended to fulfill this function and, in some limited areas at least, there is good participation by PSC staff.
PSDN is a definite improvement in the right direction, and there's more & better participation by PSC people, but there's still a ways to go.
The other might be a sort of developer's ombudsperson, i.e., someone to take an advocate's role in favor of a developer who doesn't think that the right things are happening. This might be not listening to enhancement requests, getting conflicting information from one's rep and others, etc., i.e., any place that one has done what one is supposed to do using the channels and one hasn't gotten a satisfactory result. No guarantee the ombudsperson will produce a satisfactory result either, of course, but they might at least come up with some better explanations.
EXACTLY. Someone on the inside who can cut through the bull and bluff and hold the appropriate people as accountable as they should be, and talk to the rest of us about the "who, what, where, and why" of what's going on.
And, many of the developers are actively insulated from public contact.
I had to respond to this separately, because it's a bit of a sore point for me. To a certain extent, I can understand why they'd keep some of the internal developers away from the general public. If they haven't learned or been trained in how to talk to the customer base, their way of interacting could cause more problems than it may solve.
For instance, one of the the main memories I have from my first Exchange (2006) was hearing "It's not going to happen", "don't hold your breath", and the like way too often.
?!?
I was absolutely astounded - you don't ask people for their input, and then slam it like that and expect they're going to be open to talking to you again in the future.
At the language Info Exchange, I tried to communicate about my procedure manager and got mis-understood, and then asked to send my code in. I'm not surprised at being mis-understood as it's a hard concept to explain. However, a couple of Language (?) Developers figured out I wasn't talking "just" about garbage collection, and got together with me afterwards and I showed them what I'd done and was looking for. We talked for a bit - so long that I missed another info exchange I'd planned to go to. Finally the manager asked me to CC him a copy of the code Salvador'd asked me to send in, so when I got home I sent him and Salvador a copy of the code to illustrate what I was trying to communicate.
Didn't hear a peep back. Not even a "Thanks for your submission." There's been some positive reaction from PSC people here on PSDN after I submitted it to the Code Share area ( possibly because someone had to actually review it before it was posted), but before that - the lack of response hasn't exactly been encouraging.
And to think - I'm investing money and time to be treated like this. How long do you think people / companies will spend ~$5K for the conference, travel, hotel, and payroll only to be ignored or told "don't hold your breath"? Granted there's other reasons to go to Exchange, but a lot more listening and positive interaction needs to be done to make the whole experience what it should be.
Now, I have to give credit to those the two Language developers, and note that I have had some good interactions with other PSC internal people, but so far they've all been from the Engine or Tech Support groups. Point in fact, 98% of my interaction with PSC Tech has been absolutely outstanding. And the other 2% got a quick response and the assurance the issue would be taken care of - usually by working with the support person to make them better at communicating, etc.
If I'd change one thing at PSC, I'd have them all spend some time with the Tech Support group and learn how they do the kind of communication they do.
Even if one allows that not all of PSC techies have a consultant's or tech support background and know how to diplomatically tell people their ideas aren't workable, a company the size of PSC can certainly afford to send the people who are their public representatives to some customer relationship classes so the customer base (that's us developers) at least leaves feeling respected and listened to even if our wish list remains just that.
Not to be intentionally rude, but considering how little many OE reps know about OE, do you really want them trying to sell Apama? Some kind of finder's percentage might be appropriate, but I have no idea how the reps commission structure works.
The complaint in this case was a non-OE sales rep who got asked about OE products in the course of his discussions about non-OE products. Apparently there's no financial incentive for turning up the lead, they just have to hand them over and disappear.
The rep didn't care to do the kinds of work required to find that lead and then get nothing for his efforts.
Didn't hear a peep back. Not even a "Thanks for your submission."
I have since corresponded with Salvador, who couldn't find the message in his archives, so the theory is that the message in question got caught in a spam filter.
Still a very good question.
Who is in charge of developer relations? Anyone? Does the concept even exist at PSC?
Bob Palumbo, VP of WW Partner Program
Developer relations do not exist. They're not in Bedford and shielded from the rest of the world. Even people from within PSC have a hard time getting through. The only time I manage to get a hold of a developer was when there was a major bug and they have to issue an emergency patch. In some sense, that might be a good thing so they don't get pestered and actually concentrate on what they're doing. Support is the front line.