I've switched to SmarterMail and have been happy with the switch. I
get quick, accurate answers to my inquiries, it's inexpensive and it
works.
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Matt <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*To:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 05, 2005 17:51
*Subject:* [IMail Forum] Some thoughts on Ipswitch
While 8.2 seems to finally start addressing some functional
improvements that are commonly sought after by IMail's users, I'm
far from accepting of the company's new direction.
My last service agreement expired earlier this year. For that
service agreement I got squat, in fact I got burned. The only
releases that came out were minor version releases that are
generally available without the service agreement. I never
contacted support during that year. Then to top things off,
Ipswitch violated the terms of my service agreement by killing
IMail as a product, and introducing IMail as a part of a much,
much more expensive bundling of existing products that I never
asked for or desired. While the company somewhat backtracked
from this decision to completely shelve IMail as a stand-alone
product, they still refuse to sell IMail to the public and one
can't build a business counting on them to deliver what is
clearly within their means. So we were all faced with an
increase in a service agreement by some 40% over what it was
previously increased to, and a product that you couldn't count on
buying or upgrading in the future. They even had the gall to
state that they were not sure as to whether or not a new Web
messaging client would be provided to us plebes that had service
agreements but weren't using ICS. It's clear as day that
Ipswitch is only selling service agreements because they saw the
opportunity to extract money from their existing customer base,
yet when those decisions were made, it was also clear as day that
they had no intention of abandoning their desires to become a
major player in the collaborative software sector and migrating
not just those of us that were willing, but giving us a choice or
being willing and staying by migrating to ICS and the expenses
that go along with it, or leaving.
If Ipswitch wants to turn this boat around they need to do four
things from my perspective:
1) Fire those that forced the abandonment of their IMail
customer base in favor of the pipe dream of becoming a major
collaborative player. If not for the fact that these people
are creeps that have very little regard for their customers,
then for the fact that they are ruining the business.
2) Sell IMail publically as a stand-alone, unbundled product
as was the case before.
3) Reorganize so that they can produce quality software for
less money, and therefore compete at the pricing points that
the rest of the industry is following ($695 for a service
agreement is absolutely ridiculous, and probably breaks the
elasticity of demand in addition to costing them a ton of
goodwill).
4) Continue improving the core product so that it can compete
more readily with other solutions on the market. Following
multiple notable improvements in 8.2 this will include
scrapping their outdated and very problematic Web mail
interface for a modern solution that utilizes IIS.
Others around here might be more diplomatic, but I'm quite sure
that at least in part, this is what the majority of us are
thinking. Ipswitch might make some inroads by attempting some or
parts of these things, but they will never earn back the goodwill
that existed before the changes were made last year.
Matt
--
=====================================================
MailPure custom filters for Declude JunkMail Pro.
http://www.mailpure.com/software/
=====================================================
