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<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_558188B8_9060208_caspia_com"
cite="mid:558188B8.9060208@caspia.com" type="cite">Computer
support is like car repair, everyone needs it but sometimes things
don't go well, and customers go away convinced that the repair
people are crooks (and some probably are). I would not be
surprised that Mozilla has had difficult experiences with this in
the past. I am sure that it is enormously challenging to maintain
a "feel good" brand name and offer support at the same time. Many
users have unrealistic expectations about how much support costs.
<br>
<br>
But so many users are desperate. Any time I do a blog posting on
the Thunderbird blog, lots of comments come in that are really
support requests. There is a clear need, and I don't think that we
should let the unfortunate fact that a minority of users will
badmouth support deter us from pursuing what is in the best
interest of a certain segment of our user population. A
significant portion of our users are expecting a professional
messaging application, and are willing to pay the costs of that.
<br>
</blockquote>
Agreed, people are often super thankful for free support (and often
donate money after the fact) - there is a big value in this, both on
an individual level and for Thunderbird as a whole (and as an
enterprise application)<br>
<br>
I think the trick is top cover the legal bases and take any
criticism in its stride. And obviously have well educated support
personnel, which is the hardest one. But to start with I think
building up the infrastructure of paid support from zero is a
daunting process - within the Mozilla-multiverse, there is no such
thing (paid support) for Firefox? I think it is still necessary in
the long run though.<br>
<br>
Axel<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_558188B8_9060208_caspia_com"
cite="mid:558188B8.9060208@caspia.com" type="cite">
<br>
I don't have any bandwidth at the moment to pursue this
unfortunately.
<br>
<br>
:rkent
<br>
<br>
On 6/17/2015 6:28 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="Cite_5727576" type="cite">On
17/06/15 14:10, Philipp Kewisch wrote:
<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="Cite_8244667" type="cite">We could
also contract the pilot out to an external company, with them
<br>
being the "Official Support Partner" and see how it goes. Of
course
<br>
there are also some legal things to take care of, but this
would save us
<br>
the need to bootstrap the whole support team.
<br>
</blockquote>
This precise thing was attempted by the Mozilla Foundation back
in the
<br>
early days. It lasted a couple of years, I think. Before trying
it, you
<br>
should find someone who was around at that time and involved in
the
<br>
program, and ask them how it went.
<br>
<br>
Gerv
<br>
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