Best of the ISP-Lists

Watch the Other Side of Front Page

Members of the ISP-Webhosting list discuss the level of customer support required by Microsoft's Web page tools. It seems it's all about making sure that users don't destroy their own systems.

[July 2, 2002]

On the ISP-Webhosting list in June, PC observed,

"In six years of providing commercial webhosting, I've had the odd request for FrontPage extensions, but I haven't had a request for FrontPage in over a year. Are customers using it, or has FrontPage support pretty much died off at this point?"

JM suggested that it's on its way out:

"I haven't noticed much FrontPage around the place, and nobody is looking for it in job descriptions."

A number of others, however, contended that it's still very much in use:

[PJ offered] "I have 25 people using FrontPage on my server currently."

[BG added] "I have personally used FrontPage since 1998, and I find that it works well and makes editing very fast and efficient. We typically host on Cobalt servers, and I would say 60 percent to 75 percent of our customers request FrontPage extensions."

[BS agreed] "Why turn away business? About 50 percent of the websites we host are FrontPage sites. We used to host them on Cobalt RAQs, but we recently moved them all to Windows 2000, which was a very good move from a support viewpoint."

[BK observed] "From the beginner to the mid-level experienced user, FrontPage is quick and easy to learn, and has a lot of programming possibilities with VBScript or JavaScript. And for the user, it has a Word-like interface, making it easy to transition."

[JB added] "I have a ton of customers that use it. As much as I dislike FrontPage for development, it cuts down on the support requests. I just make sure that if a customer uses FrontPage, they can't touch the _vti and .htaccess files with FTP."

Still others disagreed as to whether or not FrontPage is a liability for web hosts:

[PC explained] "I'd set up FrontPage for my customers, but I keep hearing wildly different opinions as to how much tech support is required."

[CW responded] "We get a lot of people requesting it, and it is a nightmare to support. Things always go wrong. My favorite is the generic error message they give for everything: that the Front Page Extensions are not installed, when they are. It will make you turn gray quickly…"

[MR countered] "The users we have who are using FrontPage are really support-free—unless they've deleted something they weren't supposed to."

[BK advised] "Get it set up right the first time, with some scripts for user management, and support should be minimal."

—End