ACE Support Services
Whether you're investigating ACE for a new project, knee-deep in intense development efforts, or responsible for maintaining your ACE-using application, questions and issues come up. When they do, do you really want to dig through hundreds of thousands of lines of code looking for an answer? And if a fix is needed, wouldn't you rather let someone else verify and test it across a long list of ACE platforms? Sure! Maintaining ACE is not your job - you have much more urgent matters to take care of. Taking care of ACE is our job and we love this stuff! Let us help you with the ACE stuff and let you stay focused on developing your applications and systems.
Riverace Corporation is the premier support provider for ACE. We pioneered ACE support services back in 1996 and we specialize in helping you to make the best use of ACE's power and flexibility while keeping your project on track. To ensure ACE keeps working on our supported platforms we maintain a complete lab to develop and maintain ACE for our customers. Riverace's expertise, popular platform availability, and quick response to problems can help you successfully design, develop, and deploy your applications. Riverace's experience and commitment to our customers' success can make the difference between successful, on-time project delivery and nightmarish delays.
When Your Project is on the Line, Trust Your Support Needs to Riverace
Sure, you can get some good help for free on the ACE users mailing list and Usenet newsgroup comp.soft-sys.ace. Hey, we even provide some of it! Many of the people willing to help you in those free forums are very smart; however, they don't work for your project and don't share your sense of urgency. When you need correct answers quickly and bugs fixed correctly on your platforms, trust Riverace's support services. Why?
- You don't have to learn all about ACE's internals. You can stay focused on your applications and system development, saving time and money.
- Riverace provides assured response times according to a defined support agreement. When you need an issue resolved, it will get done.
- Expanded platform coverage. Riverace's software lab has Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sun and IBM equipment configured and running so we can address your platform-specific issues quickly and decisively.
- Riverace will make sure that any source code fixes you require are properly integrated into ACE according to your selected service level. Riverace will also ensure that the fixes are carried forward in the main development version so you will not need to re-apply changes when you upgrade to a later release.
- Buying support for a platform helps to ensure that it will continue to be supported and maintained.
- Riverace is here to help you succeed, and that's all we're here for. When you submit an issue to us for resolution, we will work with you until the problem is resolved.
When you purchase ACE support services from Riverace Corporation, you get:
- Ability to call for support during our regular support hours (on most plans)
- Periodic "tricks and tips" newsletter about ACE programming
- Ability to email support issues or questions to us 24 hours a day
- Ability to submit support issues or questions on our support website 24 hours a day
- Prompt, courteous, efficient response to your problem
- If your issue involves the need to fix a bug, you'll get fixed source code (as defined by your service level)
Premier Support Plans and Prices
We offer three different service levels - pick the level that meets your needs:
- Stream Level, for when you're cruising along without much pressure but want expertise to be available. Free access to all Riverace Fix Kits, and ask all the questions you want via our support customer-only web site! If you encounter a bug, we'll fix it in a future ACE version.
- River Level, when there are a few rocks and deep pockets you could use some quick and sure help with. Free access to all Riverace Fix Kits, and all the questions and issues you can report. Plus, you can call us toll free (during normal support hours) to discuss your questions quickly. And, we'll get you any fixes you need patched into the supported ACE version you reported it against, and carry it forward to future ACE versions.
- Whitewater Level, when you're working with current ACE development betas and you need expert guidance to successfully navigate the rough stuff. All the features in River Level, PLUS we'll do it all for the regularly supported ACE versions AND the current beta. Whitewater Level also includes up to 10 hours per year of expert development assistance for adding new or enhanced features to the ACE development stream.
Each level can be purchased for a certain number of developers (for smaller groups) or for an entire project group (for larger teams). All three levels feature support for the same comprehensive list of popular computing platforms (a combination of hardware, OS, and compiler). The differences between the three service levels are in which type of ACE release you need support for and how quickly you need any bug fixes to be made available. This chart outlines the benefits and differences between the Stream, River, and Whitewater levels. The "Supported Versions" are the current and previous released versions of ACE, as well as any released version of ACE with a release date within one year from your support request. Released versions are ACE releases with 2 digits (e.g., 5.5) as well as Riverace-released fix kits, which have 2 digits and a letter (e.g. 5.5b). So, currently, ACE versions 5.5 (including all fix kits) and 5.6 (and its Fix Kits) are supported. Beta versions (usually those with 3 digits, 5.6.x) are supported under the Whitewater Level only.
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River |
Whitewater |
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| Unlimited support issues during your annual term |  |
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| Nondisclosure provision to safely share your code | |
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| Questions answered quickly by an ACE specialist | |
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| Submit issues by email | |
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| Submit issues at ACE support website | |
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| Submit issues by telephone (toll-free in US) | |
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| Covers supported ACE versions | |
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| Covers current ACE development beta | |
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| Fixes available in next ACE release | |
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| Fixes available in reported ACE version | |
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| Fixes available in next ACE beta | |
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| Includes 10 hours/year development time for new ACE features and enhancements | |
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| Flexible per-developer or whole-group pricing | |
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| Support your entire group for a whole year | $2,400 |
$4,900 |
$12,000 |
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| Smaller group? Per-developer support for one year | $795 |
$1,650 |
$3,900 |
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| ... or 12 monthly payments | $79 |
$165 |
$390 |
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If you're ready to take advantage of Riverace's world-class support now, you can buy your support immediately. If you elect developer-based pricing, please purchase one term for each developer on your project. Each of those developers can contact us for support assistance. Since ACE is not licensed per user, we rely on you to purchase a support term for each ACE developer.
We use the current list of active support customers to decide when to drop ACE platforms from our list of supported platforms. We periodically survey our customers to determine which platforms are in use. If a given platform is used by at least 1 group-wide support customer or at least 5 developers (among any number of companies), we'll continue to support that platform. If usage falls below those levels, we may remove the platform from our supported platforms list.
ACE support is currently available on the following platforms. We can (sometimes very easily) add support for more platforms if there is demand for it, so if yours isn't listed, feel free to ask.
Supported ACE Platforms |
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Detailed pricing and available support term information are given in the Support section of the ACE store. The ACE Annual Support service is governed by Riverace's ACE Support Terms and Conditions. Please contact Steve Huston by email at shuston@riverace.com, or by telephone at +1.508.541.9180 to discuss your group's support needs, to get a price quote, or to receive a copy of the terms and conditions for this service.
Riverace can also provide consulting services for your project. We're available to help with anything from design reviews to full project life-cycle consultation and engineering assistance. We'd be happy to talk with you about your project and work with you to determine what would be most useful to your project.
If there is some service which would be helpful to you but you don't see, please send email to info@riverace.com with your ideas and suggestions - Riverace is here to help you succeed!