Vendor Knowledgebase’s

This is a mixed bag if I have ever seen one. Some vendor’s out there have knowledgebase’s so concise and breeming with information in a well indexed and easily searchable manner that it makes me want to compose a song in their honour. Some vendors however have knowledgebase’s so empty, or jammed with useless or antiquated information, or presented in a poor manner where your are never able to locate the article you need that you just want to go to their HQ and smack them.

I think this is pretty straightforward idea that when you produce a product you should want people to be able to fix the product as easily as possible. Obstacles and challenges in the movies are great but finding a bug fix on a vendor site should not warrant  difficulties worthy of the next Indiana Jones flick. I am going to quote a unnamed vendor rep who once told me in response to a question about getting better info about their product in their knowledgebase “It doesn’t look good for us if we post all of these issues”, to which I responded “I understand, however it looks even worse when we waste 10 hours trying to fix a problem only to call your tech support line and find out that it is a known issue with a easy work around”.

I would like a make a specific mention of Blackberry’s knowledgebase  http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/). I have used this knowledgebase on several occasions and found that it was excellent. This is the example by which all other vendor knowledebase’s should be judged.