Re: Upgrade Charges - PLEASE READ !!!

[nina jones <ddi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I landed in a new AS/400 shop in July of last year. 620 running V4R1 as
> it was shipped. Came from a much bigger operation with various boxes on
> V3R6 and V3R7 due to Y2K testing so hadn't looked to hard at V4Rx and
> SSO, etc.
> 
> At the end of last year (as warranty was running out on AS/400) I got
> quotes from our Business Partner for (1) 3 year Hardware Maintenance (2)
> 3 year Software Subscription and (3) SupportLine.
> 
> Was told that the Software Subscription included all upgrades during the
> 3 year period and that the only charge might be a media charge. About a
> month ago I went to order V4R3 (we just came up live on the AS/400
> January 1 of this year) and got a bit of a surprise - we are going to
> get charged for the V3R7 Licensed Programs. I seem to have a faint
> recollection of this WAY back but not sure. Obviously when I mentioned
> this to the powers that be around here, while they are cool, they are
> NOT going to like this.
> 
> I think it's a REAL bad move on IBM's part (marketing again ?)
> especially for a NEW shop dumping a Unix box. I also FULLY realize that
> our BP screwed up in this too !
> 
> At ANY rate (cut to the chase) I am in contact with someone at IBM and
> they ARE taking this seriously. Are there others that are in the same
> boat out there ? I will happily pass along name and numbers ! This will
> help !!


I know what you are talking about.  V4R1 came out in August 1997, and
V4r2 came out in March, 1998, or something like that.  V4r1 was really
v3r7 with support for the model 600 series.  The main version 4
enhancements came out with v4r2.

If you were on v4r1, you had until the end of June 1998 to order v4r2,
without charge.  Your business partner should have known.  We got
several notices and phone calls about being sure our v4r1 clients
ordered r2.

I can understand your frustration, but you need to chew your business
partner.  Sounds like they dropped the ball.  We went ahead and ordered
r2 for our clients, and told them what it was when the boxes came in!

nj
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