[ubuntu-us-ma] Business Plan of Action for Ubuntu Professional Support & Distribution

[Martin Owens]

Even Microsoft doesn't do support on the ground level, they do channels
support, preferred partners, other similar things.

Of course maybe they'd pull people out of Lexington to do support on
someone's 20 machine installation, but I doubt it very much knowing as I
do the internals of Canonical.

Support is a money maker, but it's also a burden in terms of staff and
organisation. The more you can make of the ecosystem the better.

Martin,

On Thu, 2010-06-10 at 14:47 -0400, Michael Curran wrote:
> If approached about on-site support for a major installation, I would
> be surprised if Canonical could provide it.  I'd assumed that if GM
> wanted to install Ubuntu on their servers, Canonical has the resources
> to provide folks on the ground to support it.  Since support like that
> is expensive for Canonical, they probably charge more than it than an
> independent firm, but given the choice most mid to large companies are
> going to ask Canonical first and if Canonical can't help the company
> themselves, they'll take a referral.  On the smaller scale, with home
> and small businesses and maybe smaller installations at larger
> organizations, an independent firm has a better shot at providing a
> cheaper option for on site support.