Oracle users think the only way to get a response from the UK support operation is to exaggerate the scale of the problem.

Nearly half of users admit playing up the severity of their problems in the hope of getting a reasonable turnaround, and 70 per cent rely on their own staff to work on problems after they are registered with Oracle support.

So says the UK Oracle User Group support survey. One in five UK Oracle users is unhappy with Oracle support, it claims.

"If half the people phoning Oracle support think the system doesn't work, then it doesn't," said user group chairman Ronan Miles.

"It is always fair to ask suppliers to put more effort into support. Oracle charges 22 per cent for support, which is pretty expensive, and people want to see a service level from it. People don't want cheaper support, they want better support," said Miles.

Ian Smith, Oracle's UK managing director, admitted in November that Oracle's price reduction last year had meant a drop in the quality of service, but Oracle attempted to downplay the survey results.

"I think overall people are happy with our support," said Oracle vice-president of UK support services John Hanley.

"We think a large part of improving confidence in the priority systems comes from improving feedback, so we are looking into this area," he said.

Users also criticised Metalink, Oracle's online support service. Metalink is seen as useful for simple problems, but search engine limitations mean it cannot cope with anything complex, said Miles.

Oracle is rolling out version three of Metalink in January 2001, and one of the main new features will be a more advanced search engine. Analysts warn of the firm's complacency, however.

"Though Oracle products are good there is an almost cavalier attitude in the company," said Trevor Eddolls, consultant with Xephon.

"It thinks it can do what it likes. Because Oracle knows it has good products and a huge market, it is not looking after its customers like it should," he said.

People are installing Microsoft's SQL server and IBM's DB2 universal database as well as Oracle products, and Oracle will lose its smaller customers to SQL Server and bigger customers to DB2 if it's not careful, he added.

First published in Computing