Matt -
I'm not arguing, but simply asking as I'm looking at moving to SM. Our license with Ipswitch is 3x that of the same version of SM. The service agreement that we purchased - but never used (because I never had enough faith in the new version of IMail) is almost twice the cost of purchasing SM new. From what I've heard from everyone I've talked to, SM actually works, so the support calls are minimal anyway. You do get free updates within the version. So if once a year I have to buy the newest version at 65% of the retail, which is still much cheaper than Imail, I'm not sure what the difference is? My SA with Imail actually just expired as I haven't had a chance to test SM yet. So my dilemma is do I renew my Imail SA at almost $1000,so I can continue running 8.22, or purchase a brand new version of SM for half that through Declude, and have the features that work that we've been waiting for? As for the software protection, I was working with a rep from SmarterMail at the start of February. He informed me right then and there that they were planning a release at the end of Q1, and that I would get the new update. Doing the math, that is almost 45 days on the bat. So either they actually keep their promises (unlike Ipswitch) or they would have stretched that time to take care of me. Again, maybe I'm missing something so this wasn't to start an argument. And I apologize for continuing the OT email. Todd From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 5:17 PM To: declude.junkmail@declude.com Subject: Re: AW: AW: [Declude.JunkMail] Hardware upgrade -Software Crossgrade? Wow. One thing immediately pops into my head...these people are greedy as hell! Prices continue to rise with each successive version, and they continue this odd behavior of not selling software subscriptions, but instead charging 65% of the original price for upgrades. This might be all fine and dandy except for the fact that they are on a one-year upgrade cycle, they stop updating previous versions, and you don't get a support contract with your purchase. Of course this flies in the face of the reality of the market where hosting is heavily commoditized and only getting worse. SmarterMail works well, but it's a shame that they don't understand the economies of their customers, and that works against them. I would definitely argue that by not offering a software subscription at a reasonable and standard market rate of 30% of full retail price, they fail to capture a good deal of upgrade potential and therefore upgrade revenue, and they lose goodwill by having fewer customers due to this pricing. They also lose customers by only offering 45 days (formerly 30 days) of protection for new purchases, so anyone thinking about buying it now would be better off waiting for the release just to guarantee that they weren't stuck on an unsupported version of the product. That's hugely boneheaded of them. So it would be close to a wash in revenue to do something as typical and expected as to have a software subscription for a standard market rate. Matt --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com.
