At 03:12 PM 6/7/2002 -0700, Brad Velander wrote: >Not to argue with you Abd ul-Rahman but Protel customer service has >specifically stated to me, a couple of times, with complete sincerity that >common CAD maintenance programs are typically 20% - 25% in the industry.
Cadence has been 15% for a long time, I think. I've been told for years that 15% was pretty much standard, I guess this was confirmed in my mind by the PADS maintenance, which is also 15%, as I recall. Maintenance that includes major upgrades ading entirely new capabilities might justifiably be more. However, Protel seemed to be charging, in the past, an effective maintenance of about 15%. The $2K upgrade from 99SE to DXP, as announced, represents about two year's period, so it is not entirely out of line with past practice. Essentially, they are making up for the "free" SE release. TANSTAAFL. ATS *renewal* is now stated as $1495. 15% would be $1200, so they have really only raised the bar a little bit. As long as they do not penalize users who delay "upgrading" or "renewing maintenance," I think they may not be out of line. (A serious penalty would be a maintenance catch-up fee larger than the maintenance arrears. While it might be fair to charge the unpaid maitenance fees in order for a user to catch up, even that would, in my view, be more that would be appropriate; Protel sales has justified to me the complete devaluation of the P99 upgrade by the fact that those who upgraded earlier had the use of the more advanced program for all that time. (To explain this, right now a resale P98 license is worth almost as much as an older P99SE license. This is because the P98 license can be upgraded to 99SE right now for $1995, and this will include DXP no extra charge; whereas the 99SE license has the *same* upgrade price announced for DXP. In other words, those who upgraded from P98 to 99SE early will see the same total cost to get to DXP as those who waited until now. This is zero penalty for delay) It would be more toward parity if the upgrade from P99SE to DXP were, say, $1495, the same price as they have announced will be the ATS price. P99SE licensees have, essentially, already paid part of the upgrade cost, when they upgraded from P98 to P99 or P99SE (or paid the much higher new license price). At least that is how I would urge Protel to look at it. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
