I was having problems with my firewall the last day or two letting me preview and post here. Anyway, here's what I tried to tell all of you about LabCorp. Months ago I asked them to work with me to be ready for Jon's update. They came back to me thru provider reps who can't really discuss contract terms or law nor tech issues with a very long small print mutli-page contract. The first one they dropped off this past fall was awful and included language that would forbid the user from removing their software from their server without LabCorp's written permission. That was a red flag for me. So I never signed, emailed Jon and Carlos and never heard back on it. Well now 3.5 was just around the corner so I was speaking with Beth at AC tech and she asked to me fax her a copy. So I requested a new copy and it seems to have changed a bit, no exact that you can't remove it without written permission but It's still very we are responsible for nothing and you're responsible for everything type of language. So it is my hope that Beth will get this infront of Jon and perhaps have him sort of talk for all his users that this thing is a bit extreme.
It talks about them Installing hardware and software. But what also worries me is when I tried to request the new copy of the contract to review and send to Beth, I called LabCorp was bounced around for 20-30 minutes by this lady who was trying to get me to the right person and place but couldn't. LabCorp seems to have closed all their local offices and centralized everything and so nobody knows what's happening nor who the clients are. Thank goodness I still had that Rep's cell phone number or I might still be waiting. What does this say about the possiblity of good tech support when there are issues with the thing. Furthermore, they want to have some tech of theirs come out to your site and install things. There seems to be another "interface" middleware thing that LabCorp is going to buy and supply but that we probably will never have our own copy in house to have incase we need to reinstall softwares for harddrive failures or infection purposes and the like. We picked AC in large part because we could take care of ourselves for the most part without having to pay Kings ransom to various tech just to maintain our on system.
As of yet I have no idea how this all works, what hardware and software is going to be installed, nor what kind of support (but I can sure guess, "don't worry just sign here first") we might be able to expect from all these folks. So now you'll have your system and your AC, some new Middleware and perhaps hardware too, and nobody is explaining anything from how it all works to why the contract is laid out the way it is.
I suggest that some of you other users asked your local (if there is anybody left in your town to talk to) reps to provide you with their copy of the contract and if they can explain how it all works and just what exactly are they going to install and be responsible for and let's all compare notes in a few days about all of this. How 'bout it?
Paul
