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"Service agreement money is not
wasted..."
I would have normally anticipated a major revision
within the terms of this current service agreement. I'm going to think that
their won't be any more Imail major revisions. Perhaps money wasted was too
strong. But the money spent is certainly not going to upgrade my product
(Imail). It may be going to fix the product. Unless I upgrade, I doubt I'll be
getting as much value out of this service agreement as my last service
agreement.
Maybe if I looked at it this way. If I knew that
the Imail product line was going undergo the current changes two months ago,
would I still have renewed my service agreement? I really can't answer that. I
certainly wish the answer could have been a Yes.
If were to upgrade to ICS, the service agreement
would have immense value more so than the $309/$495 that I paid for
it.
From what messages I have read, people with service
agreements aren't happy. I'm not alone in this thinking.
"Selling the out of budget price hike"
Their website says limited time offer until
December 31, 2004 to take advantage of the upgrade pricing. So if I want to take
advantage of the upgrade pricing, I'll need to do so before December 31. Perhaps
they'll honor that price throughout my service agreement terms, but I can't find
that in writing anywhere. Maybe it has popped up in the discussion group, but
there have been too many messages to read them all.
For budgeting purposes of the corporate world, more
than two months notice is what I am asking for. 6 months notice is not always
enough.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 3:53
PM
Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] Cross-grade
concerns addressed (NEW SVC AGREEMENT PRICES)
Scott, I need to
respond to a couple of inaccuracies here in fairness to
Ipswitch:
1. The service
agreement is not money wasted per se, in that there is going to be another
update in the works. Further, in your circumstances, your SA appears to be
good until 08/05, which is in your next fiscal budget, so where does �selling
the out-of-budget price hikes to my boss� come into play?
John
Tolmachoff
Engineer/Consultant/Owner
eServices For
You
-----Original
Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Scott Fisher
Sent: Wednesday, October
27, 2004 1:18
PM
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] Cross-grade
concerns addressed (NEW SVC AGREEMENT PRICES)
From a 175 employee business
prospective: these things about the ICS switch bother
me:
1. I work on a fiscal budget
of July to June. I've had no advance warning of the changes, and have no way
to budget for the upgrade prices even if I did want it. My price going from
$495 to $2495 ... 5x the price is a big jump. And frankly you aren't giving me
much ammunition to go sell the out-of-budget price hikes to my
boss.
Add to the fact, I bought my
service agreement in late August and there is going to be no major upgrade for
this service agreement. I haven't called for support and I probably won't. So
I'll consider the service agreement money wasted.
2. I can understand why you
aren't making money on the Service Agreements... I paid slightly over $300 for
mine through a reseller. Take his profit out and you are getting what
$250-$275 for any Service Agreements sold through resellers. I really didn't
have a problem with the $495, but I could easily find a much cheaper price.
Perhaps if you stopped selling the Service Agreements through resellers,
service agreements could be a revenue stream.
3. Imail has always been
offered on an a la carte basis. You buy the Imail system, and you could add
the anti-virus option, the fax option, the better webmail option. I think this
sales method was appreciated. Now to roll it all into one bundle, and make
many people pay for items they don't want is pretty unfair. For me the Declude
Anti-Virus and Declude Junkmail add-ons were one of the major reasons I choose
Imail. So 2 of your 5 bullet points (spam protection and virus protection) for
ICS, I wouldn't want and would personally consider to be a downgrade to my
protection level if I was using them. The fact alone that I would be forced to
pay for products I wouldn't use is mighty distasteful.
If the product and price was
right, I would consider a collaboration add-on, although I like many others
were led to believe that this would be part of the next Imail
upgrade.
I haven't seen a lot of clamoring
for the instant messaging option either. I don't have any interest in it at
this point.
4. If the support is
becoming a financial burden, separate the service agreement into two parts.
One part the upgrade assurance would allow continued access to minor upgrade
and next releases. Add a Support agreement option for 8x5 and possibly a
more expensive 24x7 option. Or better yet, paid support over the phone. But if
I'm paying for support it better be good and by this I mean not somebody in an
Indian
Call Center reading
off a script. Again, I've never called support, so I can't comment on your
phone support. I have used e-mail support once and I got the answer I needed
pretty quickly.
I'd consider the $495 to be a fair
price for the upgrade assurance option bought solely through
Ipswitch (remember point 2 and the real costs of the service agreement).
Many of us regularly pay items like this.
I like Imail and want Ipswitch to
stay around and get better. I
wish questions like "what would be a fair price for such an agreement?" would
have been thought of and asked before the
firestorm.
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