What should a vendor product do when it expires or whatever? That's a serious 
question. I'm a vendor product architect. We need the revenue -- those pesky 
programmer salaries and all that. We don't have the resources to audit every 
customer. Customers tend not to return vendor phone calls and e-mails unless 
the customer wants something from the vendor -- that is, assuming you can find 
a relevant contact at the customer. Not blaming the customers or anything -- 
just looking for guidance from a customer. What should the product do if not 
shut down. (It's already been squawking on the console for 30 days, but no one 
reads that, of course.)

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of Jesse 1 Robinson
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2017 3:36 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Potential stupid question - MSUs

'Dead wrong' seems a bit harsh. How about 'wounded wrong'? My claim that 
companies don't set out to cheat vendors is naïve because I never experienced 
it. Touche. But I did not waffle on the long-term consequences of T&C violation 
even if inadvertent. You eventually have to pay regardless. 

I stand by my example of PSF excession. How would it have been if our printers 
had stopped working in the middle of a 100K bill run at oh dark thirty on a 
Tuesday morning? What would that have done to our customer relationship with 
IBM? Yet we have had major business disruptions involving *other* vendors who 
see fit to shut down their products until someone negotiates a new contract. A 
lousy way to do business.  

.
.
J.O.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler 
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
323-715-0595 Mobile
626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW
[email protected]


-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of Ed Jaffe
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2017 11:18 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: (External):Re: Potential stupid question - MSUs

On 10/18/2017 10:42 AM, Charles Mills wrote:
> And yes, with the complexity of modern 'plexes and licenses, we have at my 
> current employer had customer, ahem, misunderstandings.

And those "misunderstandings" have a mixed-bag of outcomes. Some customers 
understand the concept of fair play, but in many cases the biggest lawyers win.

If, as Skip's company did (BTW, Skip is DEAD WRONG on this issue), you 
"accidentally" use unlicensed IBM software, you will pay -- no question about 
it because IBM's lawyers are as big or bigger than yours are *AND* they own the 
operating system on which your business depends. But, when the customer's 
lawyer is bigger than the ISV's lawyer, some have a tendency to say, "Hey, Man. 
It was an accident and it won't happen again. It's really your fault that your 
software doesn't enforce the contract T&Cs properly. BTW, could you now spend 
money on a project to build protections into your software to help us police 
this?"

--
Phoenix Software International
Edward E. Jaffe
831 Parkview Drive North
El Segundo, CA 90245
http://www.phoenixsoftware.com/


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