From: Charles Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
As someone who has been on the vendor side of this one, let me say that
"$5000" is only a small part of the cost, and if you do your cost
justification based on that, then any perceptive manager is going to give
you a thumbs down.
The real, total cost includes:
- Management time to evaluate, negotiate, and purchase
Evaluation is usually left to be done by the people in the trenches. While
programmers are using it to get their regular day to day tasks done, they're
being more productive. So, the cost to the company is none. Instead, the
company is actually saving time and money while the free trial evaluation is
being conducted.
- Sysprog time to install, secure, configure, etc.
Anyone can install the ISPF/PDF interface upgrade, even a junior application
developer with no authority to update anything but their own personal
libraries. It doesn't take a sysprog to install it. In any case, it takes
less than an hour to install.
- Training time. Takes no training? Really? Not even a memo to announce its
availability?
No training, really. No need to announce availability; just stick an option
on the ISPF menu. But if you want to send a memo to announce it, I guess you
should add about 10 minutes to the overall cost.
- Help desk time (particularly if you scrimped on the training - some
people
can screw up anything)
Help desk people absolutely love it. The phone rings, and the the help desk
answers:
HD: "Hello, this is the help desk."
Caller: "Hi, I've run out of space in my data set. What do I do?"
HD: "Select the data set using function 'I' (Information), then overtype any
attributes you want to change".
Caller: "Great; thanks!"
HD: "Hello, this is the help desk".
Caller: "I accidentally deleted/corrupted a data set. What do I do?"
HD: "Select the dataset using function 'H' (HSM) and select the backup you
want to recover from the displayed list."
Caller: "Great; thanks!"
- Cost of future maintenance
$5,000 annually. No additional fees when upgrading to bigger/faster
mainframes.
- Management time to negotiate future upgrades, etc.
See above.
- Risk that you raise future maintenance charges, upgrade charges, etc.
Built into the contract; no risk.
- Risk that the product causes conflicts/problems with a critical system
(yeah, you know it won't, but that pointy-headed boss sees that as a
salesman promise)
None.
- Other undefined risks (a BIG deal in big corporations - nobody ever got
fired for NOT buying your product)
Compared to the risk of not using a product that dramatically increases
productivity, while your competitors do use it? None.
I'm not putting down your product. I'm just telling anyone cost-justifying
it to their management to be sure to include ALL the costs.
I understand, and I'm not putting down your comments. If a company is buying
a product that costs half a million bucks, they should seriously do all the
things you've suggested and of course the cost of doing that needs to be
taken into consideration. But installing a product that takes less than an
hour to install, can be tried for free, and can be purchased for money that
some companies keep in their petty cash drawer, shouldn't raise the cost by
any tangible amount.
Frankly, you might consider raising your prices! As the above cost to the
customer may well exceed $100,000, it's a shame the authors/IP owners are
only getting 5% of that!
$5,000 is an introductory price, and it will go up. But customers who get it
at the introductory price won't be expected to pay the higher price when it
eventually goes up. Note that I use the word 'price' and not 'cost'; the
product is designed to save hundreds of thousands or even millions of
dollars a year, so it doesn't really 'cost' anything.
Dave Salt
SimpList(tm) - The easiest, most powerful way to surf a mainframe!
http://www.mackinney.com/products/SIM/simplist.htm
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