Software costs really get my goat - having spent a lot of time and effort dealing with vendors in the past.
the quotes list is most of the 'usual suspects' however like the film non of them are the real culprit viz:- There are myriad reasons in the case of software, including differing: - support costs don't see how these change - local sales costs maybe (but they ain't support costs) for companies that push salesmen door to door. But the level 3 team will still be where it is and the larger companies will have centralised help desk operations. the smaller companies tend to sell in their own markets and not gouge too much on price. some even have a good business model for both sides of the bargain - SELCOPY anyone ? - language translation gimme a break - that a feature added to a product to enable entry into new markets. that should be a vendor costs not a customer cost. also as international business language is English I take this to really refer to DBCS land and the size of those markets make it well worthwile for the vendor. But if I buy in the original language I should not pay a bean extra for all the other ones. And multi-language support in software not the pain it used to be. Now if it meant all the documentation was also translated into the target language I could see 'some' justification - but how many are ? - local marketing and sales expenses Cover for the market segmentation imposed by dealer agreements by companies (or regional price variation being forced by the global sellers). And as for free movemnet of goods and prices in the EU - gimme a break. haven't looked for a while but how many vendors sell at a consistent priice in Euros across the EU. When its a global to global arrangement e.g. IBM to transglobal multinational what has this to do with anything ? - currency rates (prices are not adjusted every day!) nor should they be - it doesn't cost much to cut a tape and send the software off, the cost is so low that currency fluctuation will not affect it. besides the vendors hedge their currencty position anyway - they pay their CFO for that so ask the next vendor who throws this one at you why their CFO is not doing his job. Software not traded on the open market like commodities or oil so currency fluctuations are primarily on the income side those on the outgoing side are due to cost of doing business locally which will have already been built into the business plans by the vendor before they sold item 1. - compliance err - with what ? the international software pricing treaty ? what customer compliance is the issue here ? if it is not delivering cutomer complianc then ther is no bottonm line value attributable to compliance by the customer. And if there were that would merely make it a primary salection criteria when short listing products. - legal and regulatory regimes see previous answers. - tariffs and taxes taxes are added after costs, if pricing was based on a real cost with an even markup then country differences would be easily explainable by tax differences. but they aren't. vendors change the pre tax price to suit thus showing that they have a LOT of flexibility in their 'base' cost. - warranty terms err - anyone any experience of a vendor giving different warranties in different countries. bearing in mind that the same level 3 team will be supporting the product no matter where it is sold this would be a logistical nightmare for the vendor. A globalised help desk would equally be - fancy reporting in the SLAs for VENDOR X helpdesk and support that have three global helpdesks and support 120 different warranties (Ts and Cs). yeah right. Next time one throws you this ball ask them for the complete set of different warranty terms that they support after all its a global economy and one of your other parts may be interested or you may move Operations or the whole company abroad in the future and this could have a bearing on that decision. - market size huh ? why ? software manufacturing and direct support costs have nothing to do with this. And if its that much oif an inbflunce I will buy of from a different country - and let that country support it. How many vendors argue against you doing this ? now if you are proposing buying from a country that has better economies for the vendor then the vendor will make more profit from it. But from some sgtrane reason they fight to stop customers from doing it. hmmmm makes you wonder. Don't get me started on 'List' prices or.. or support costs tagged to List prices or or or.. better yet 'Value pricing' or or .. or.. 'Its not our policy to ...' arrghh !!! I will have a fit and throw a real diatribe then... "The biggest trick the software vendors ever pulled was convincing everyone that they don't have ultimate control over their own prices." !And like that, your software budget was gone' :]this_soapbox-never_off = 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
