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I should add a few words to the recent dialog about DTN and BMI.
Like Bob Hoff, I've been an off-and-on subscriber to DBC for many
years... when I started, they were Lotus Info Systems. Even then, and
certainly since then, the products were OK, but the customer service was
an irritant. Officious, condescending, arrogant... I would have thought
somewhere, DBC would recognise the value of respecting the needs of the
customer.
So I shopped elsewhere in early '95, and it was BMI. In contrast, BMI
was a breath of fresh air. Not flawless, but lots better. I guess they
got so good, they got bought (big fish eating the little fish), and I
was back where I started: BMI had become DBC. At first, they continued
to answer the tech support lines, so it still SEEMED like the old BMI,
but then that changed too... on the rare occasion that I dial BMI tech
support, I haven't had a phone answer in over a year. They recently
have reponded to e-mail, but not satisfactorily for my needs.
I've never understood why a publicly traded company would proffer such
continually deplorable customer relations. I would think that
somewhere, the message would be raised that better service promotes
customer loyalty, and ergo corporate profits. But it never seems to
change (except when it gets worse), and I suspect this is what my
$250/month will continue to buy at that store.
DTN has recently started sounding like a better offer, especially since
my trading vehicles are usually equity options, and the quotes are only
sporadically reported on BMI, versus consistently [as I understand it]
on DTN. The recent satellite burp has given me pause for thought, but I
think DTN is the future. In fact, if DTN gets popular enough, I suppose
we can expect them to get eaten by DBC as well. Will probably be a
month or two after I switch over <G>.
Earl Adamy surmised that BMI dropped service until the second trading
day during the recent outage. For the record, I saw the Omega posting
from someone in BMI (forwarded to Realtraders by John Romero) at noon,
Pacific time on the first day... I was tuned to the new satellite by
market close (an hour later) that day. BMI tech support finally sent
out the "official" e-mail notifying customers of the G3 alternative
later that afternoon, so I essentially lost one day of market data.
I've heard that PanAmSat contracts with their customers (such as DBC) to
no-charge any periods of data outage, but I haven't heard if that nicety
would be passed on to the rest of us. Wouldn't that be a pleasant
surprise?
I heard it recently speculated that one of the paranoias currently in
vogue within Microsoft is that the current DOJ flail will result in
federal regulation of Microsoft as a "utility" company. The thinking
was that, in vending a product as ubiquitous as Windows, and doing so
with such callous disregard (?) for competition in the marketplace,
their business practices perhaps require regulation as a "public
resource." Without suggesting that I agree or not with that
perspective, I would suggest that Microsoft is not the only organization
subject to that kind of scrutiny and consideration.
Good Trading, Good Data...
Dick Crotinger
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