Is ST technical support working?

[stevemelnikoff9]

Posted on June 29, 2009 at 07:58

Is ST technical support working?

[stevemelnikoff9]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

For technical support, I prefer to communicate with the company in question directly. My experience is that this is the most effective way of getting my queries answered.

Certainly, if all else fails, I will speak to our distributor.

[stevemelnikoff9]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

(This is slightly off-topic, but there didn't seem to be anywhere better to raise this).

I contact ST technical support through the website on 11 May. I received an automated e-mail response, which is fine - but this e-mail had no issue ID, no link to somewhere on the website where I could monitor my issue, and no e-mail address I could send any additional information to. Having not received any response, I submitted another request on 29 May, and received the automated e-mail as before. I have not yet received any further response to these e-mails. So my questions to any ST people reading: 1) Is ST technical support working OK? 2) Do you have some kind of ticketing system for technical requests, to enable customers to track of current and previous questions? 3) If not, do you have any plans to introduce such a system? While I'm clearly not very impressed with that part of the website, I do think these forums are a very useful resource. Thanks, Steve.

[st3]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

Have you tried talking to your local Distributor and/or FAE?

[obtronix]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

I have no idea of the financial health of ST, but other semi companies I work with are now in survival mode. New parts are being delayed, older ''semi-obsolete'' parts are now being made ''fully obsolete'' with no support, and oh yea, some have declared bankruptcy, forcing me to redesign existing products with parts from non bankrupt companies.

Maybe part of the reason for the lack of response, it's the first thing to go :o

[jvaque]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

So far, I got a good support from ST via our local distributor.

[16-32micros]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

Hi Steve,

Could you please let me know your Location/Region ? : we have different organizations World Wide, The best is to contact your local distributor then he will open you a channel with ST. You can also use these forums :) For your questions and you can get answers from the Community ... Cheers, STOne-32.

[st3]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

Quote:

I prefer to communicate with the company in question directly.

Yes, I would prefer that, but it is not usually the way that the companies - especially big compaies like ST - prefer. :( They usually prefer that you go via distribution. Of course, some distributors are very good...

[stevemelnikoff9]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

Thank you for your answers.

STOne-32: I'm in the south-west of the UK. Just to put my earlier comments in context, prior to using STM32s, we were using a number of Freescale microcontrollers. Freescale have a ticketing system, and keep a permanent archive of all your previous issues. I found that they tended to respond quickly (typically within 2-3 days), and were generally able to answer even the more obscure technical questions. As a result, I never had to go through distributors - but if that's ST's preferred route, then fair enough. In any case, for both Freescale and ST, the forums remain my first port of call. My ideal scenario would be a chip as good as an STM32, with the support infrastructure of Freescale. Now if only Freescale had a Cortex-M3 chip to offer... ;) Steve.

[st3]

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 13:14

Quote:

I'm in the south-west of the UK.

I'm in the south of the UK - so we'd probably have the same distribtor contact...? ;)