This particular product is often used by the SMB types. This changes things a bit. While I disagree with paying for signature updates you didn't use (It's a service, and I don't care about their fixed costs, I went into it knowing I'd have a license for the signatures as they were expired), I do understand where they are coming from for software/firmware development. Unfortunately, they don't decouple the two.
However, this particular vendor is bad in a market where gear often passes hands or goes lapsed for years. After a certain point (IE: 1 yr), you shouldn't have to true-up. This particular company makes your 3-year lapsed appliance pay for 3 years of missed updates, at which point you might as well just throw it in the garbage. Same thing with my license plates -- if they go for 11 months or less, I have to "true up". If I put a car in storage for over a year, I can purchase a new registration. On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 11:04 AM, James M Keller <[email protected]>wrote: > On 12/21/2011 3:22 PM, David Swafford wrote: > > In my position within the enterprise vertical, backdating to the > > expiration (not the payment date) seems to be the norm. Cisco does > > this on SmartNet, as does SolarWinds and a number of other vendors > > I've worked with. We don't typically slip on the dates intentionally, > > but our procurement and legal groups have a habit of fighting over > > wording on the contracts. > > > > David. > > > > > > Having worked in the past at a shop that sold managed support agreements > for software we sold - the overhead for staffing and code and > blacklisting type data sets are spread out in the yearly support > agreement. A lapsed customer has not funded the delta changes in code > and data set from lapsed data to renewal date, but will get to take > advantage of the work. > While a new customer also will not fund these on a new starting > contract, that is normally considered some cost of acquiring new > business. > > Now in some cases on the other end of the transaction I've found it > cheaper to buy 'new' then it was to 'true up' the support. I haven't > found a vendor that wouldn't go that route, even if it involved getting > some escalation on the sales side first. At that point it's the cost > of customer retention vs new business that the vendor needs to worry > about. However if you are happy with the product, and the renewal > isn't more then 'new' purchases - we all shouldn't be baulking having to > 'true up' contracts. > > -- > --- > James M Keller > > >
