Kristy Ward: We know there are issues here and we have been working on them. There are weekly meetings that go on about this. There’s some additional staffing going on — so although I can’t give you the name of someone now who could act as an ombudsman, we should shortly be able to do something there.

In the area of search enhancements, there’s going to be a major enhancement to ESC keyword search this spring. The new user interface will have document categorization similar to how Yahoo! does it. We are experimenting with algorithms to improve the search filters. Customers can now provide HP with feedback on the individual documents in the database. We don’t have plans to implement bug report submission this year. Underlying bug report technology is changing, and we want that to be in place before we have submissions via ESC.

As far as performance goes, we did upgrade the main system in November, but the secondary server will be upgraded [in February] and in the early summer a third server will be added. We will upgrade all servers from K-class to V-class. We are also working on some tools optimization to improve performance and availability; made extensive improvements to the administration of the software update management systems; and have implemented some document caching. Beginning this month, ESC users who have linked multiple system handles under one user ID will experience improved login performance. We’ve also reduced the number of graphic images by half, which has improved system speed.