If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. That was the message Specialty Bakers Inc., a commercial baker based in Marysville, Pa., had for Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) (NYSE: CA) when it replaced the vendor's backup software with archrival Veritas Software Corp.'s (Nasdaq: VRTS) Backup Exec last year.
The baker -- which has been selling cakes, pies, French twirls, and other goodies since 1901 -- is not only glowing in its praise for Veritas's backup software but also seething in its criticism of the CA ARCserve products it used for nearly five years.
"When we were with CA, you would come in every morning knowing you'd spend two hours at least analyzing the problems with the backup from the night before," says Jack Eckerd, director of information services at Specialty Bakers. "Now, we're very confident that our backup works." [Ed. note: Kind of makes you wonder why they waited five years to replace it, doesn't it?]
David Liff, VP of CA's BrightStor Solutions, is quick to point out that the baker was using ARCserve version 6.61, not the vendor's latest software version. "ARCserve version 9 is a very high-quality product," he insists. "We have seen very many Veritas customers coming to CA -- not the other way around."
But it wasn't just a problem with the software, according to Eckerd. Besides CA's ARCserve being riddled with problems, he says, the company's technical support also left much to be desired. "We started getting very frustrated," he says. "Sometimes a support call could take three to four days to resolve... and there were language barriers. The support staff often didn't speak fluent English."
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