Canonical Does Consumer Support Now

[kevin11951]

I noticed Canonical now professionally supports the every man like you and me. This may be well known already, but I thought it was interesting.

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services/starter

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services/advanced

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services/professional

A bit expensive though... :P

[Techsnap]

They've offered paid customer support since the beginning of Ubuntu in 2004, this is nothing new.

[Ylon]

I don't think 103€ for about 3 years is not that expensive... if you think that Windows Seven license cost even more with no real support at all (by sure you can't call them for "Troubleshooting and resolving multimedia problems" or "Creating and editing photo albums" (reference (http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services/starter/features)))



Many that are try to compare the price of Windows with Ubuntu (instead say "it's just no pay") should consider fairer comparison and spend about the same in Windows and Ubuntu before make real compare.

In the end, Human Professional support can't even be compared to digitalized auto-responding machine (like Windows do).

[3rdalbum]

They've offered paid customer support since the beginning of Ubuntu in 2004, this is nothing new.

It *is* new. They've had support contracts for business users before, but it's only in the last couple of months have they had support plans for ordinary home users.

[mkvnmtr]

For many users I think this is a great idea. Some of us have the time to study and fix the problems that we encounter ourselves, some do not. For the users that are giving up on Ubuntu we can no recomend they get support.

[Techsnap]

It *is* new. They've had support contracts for business users before, but it's only in the last couple of months have they had support plans for ordinary home users.

By looking at these I still believe these are mainly targeted on businesses/OEMS [Including the Support package with an OEM Package]. Most people installing Ubuntu know what they are getting into and if they need help with some of the things that the starter support offers they're either:

Really, Really Eager to use Ubuntu.
Not putting in enough effort to look things up.

Anyways I'd call these rip off prices.

[mkvnmtr]

After reading the post about ripoff prices I went to the site to see for myself. To me the prices did not seem high at all. Remember the support is for people without the time or desire to learn to administer their own systems. I will recomend the service to anyone that has problems the can not resolve alone.

[Anzan]

While I do not need the support, the prices seem very reasonable compared to what one winds up spending on Borgware and all of the stuff needed to keep it running and then the programs needed to do anything (unless you pirate the programs as most people do with no hesitation).

I've spent many thousands of dollars on Apple and Windows over the years before moving to Linux.

[alex2399]

I believe this is a very good initiative. Furthermore the pricing is very competative compared to what is delivered and it sparkles my interest.

Though there are some outstanding questions I have, so hopefully someone has already used this service.

If you were to take this service in a non-english country, will you get assistance in your native language?
What is the quality of the support?
If you call, what are the costs?