Re: MCSE's and Unix Admin's are equally bad... ...as mainframe engineers
I'm not ignorant of progress at all and Mainframes have not been perfect either. However, going back to the context of this discussion which is - the decline in support quality - I think you are missing the important points.
The decline of support quality or skills has little to do with MCSE's, Unix Admins or untrained users.
The commodisation of x86 also introduced a shift in support and service delivery quality. I have seen this shift over 20 years.
During earlier times there would be a lot more brains in the field (Onsite engineers). Increasingly there was a shift whereas the field engineers became dumb drones remote controlled from the call centre.
In other words - there is no support experience anymore because support is now transaction based.
In its extreme form there is a split between customer empathy and actual technical skill. A good example are the call handlers that apologise over and over - until you finally get somebody on the phone who is a subject matter expert, hours later.
In addition, most IT vendors advertise how well they Integrate and Partner with other Technology vendors. There are roadshows and Partner events where customers get lulled in - but once you log a support ticket the first thing the engineer will try to do is eliminate his employers kit as the source of the problem.
Surely you could buy that Premium , Platinum Star Collaborative Support Contract - but that's about as useful as aftermarket car seat stain protector.
I like X86 and the effort people put into Open Source Software, however Support Quality has declined.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
