Symantec Platinum

Symantec Platinum support is an outrageous expense. On a recent renewal we found that the software cost $20k and platinum support was aroung $12k. What do you get for this 50% premium?

• Tech support agents who actually know something about the product and have reasonable access engineers to actually get problems solved.
  
• Reduced wait times on hold.
  
• The ability to access the current build of the product.
  
• 24/7 support instead of 12/5
  
• A special knowledge base.
  
• Customized Email, pager, and telephone alerts for virus notification.
  
• The brochure says something about special akamai live update servers. I wasn't aware of that was only for platinum people.
  
• Online Support Ticketing
  

It seems to me that just purchasing the product should entitle you to the best parts of that. Why have a special knowledge base for those with deep pockets. The knowledge base for platinum customers is better than the knowledgebase available to the gold tech support (either that the gold tech support doesn't know how to use a knowledge base search).

Purchasing the product should entitle you to the latest bug fixes. They shouldn't be held aside. If its in public release it should be available to gold customers as well as platinum.

Non-Gold customers should't have to wait on hold for 60minutes on a routine basis.