RE: Customers vs. ISV (was: New redpaper)

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Buck
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 1:16 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: New redpaper: i5/OS Program Conversion: Getting
readyfor i5/OSV6R1

Charles wrote:

Aaron,

Have you considered simply making available an older

version of your

software for those older releases?

I'm sure there'd be differences in functionality, but if a

customer is

willing to accept the difference in OS functionality, why

should they expect the available software to be up to date?

I'm not Aaron, but I did work for an ISV for a decade.
Everyone seems focussed on new sales (as in what customer
buys new software to run on an antique machine?) From my
perspective it's more a matter of supporting the existing
customer base. When you sell your package to a customer
who's on V4R4 way back when, then time passes and despite
your advice, cajoling, wheedling and prayers they simply
refuse to upgrade _but_ are willing to pay you your monthly
support fee, what do you as a software house do? Tell your
customer to buzz off? We don't want your money, your loyalty
or your patronage? With upset existing customers, who do you
turn to for referrals to sell the package to new customers?

If I was running Win95, I don't expect to be able run WinXP

applications.

Probably not. But like most midrange vs PC analogies, this
one's weakness is the matter of support. It's very unlikely
that you are running your business on a Win 95 package that
you pay support on. It's
way more likely that you are running your business on my package on
V4R5 and paying me for support. You want bugs fixed and you
want new features for your monthly fee.

If a customer's back on v4r4, how much new functionality are they really asking for? If they're
stable, there're stable. They really shouldn't need anything new. By definition, they're not going
to do anything with the new functionality anyways.

Does your v4r4 customer really expect to be supported forever? Who gave them that idea? It's
certainly not something I expect when looking at packages. Even while I worked at a small private
company as 50% of the IT department.

How many new customers has the v4r4 customer helped you get? Since they're using your product as if
it was the original v4r4 version, I'm guessing not many. On the other hand, I bet that v5r4 customer
whose taking advantage of ever new feature you add would be quite helpful with that new sale.

Lastly, how many new customers have you missed out on since you're missing some functionality provided
by the new OS versions?

The ISV is in a difficult spot - telling a customer he can't
have the new goodies is very likely to see him stop paying
for support.

Yep, sure will. Is that bad? Not necessary. The problem IMHO, is that the ISV sees that v4r4 support
money as basically free. This guy keeps sending checks, but he never calls since he doesn't do
anything new and all I need to do is throw him a bone once and awhile by releasing a new version that
doesn't make use of anything new in the OS; he doesn't even have to upgrade, and he probably won't
since he doesn't like change.

Now I've got a nice revenue stream with little costs.

However, I'm not taking into account the costs associated with not being able to use the enhancements
in the new OS releases. Productivity improvements for my own developers and the value of new feature
X to my customers.

As a small ISV, if you're taking all the costs into account when you determine if it's time to up your
minimum release for the latest version of your product and you decide it's not worthwhile. Fine.
That's a logical business decision and I can't argue with. But make sure you're considering all
costs.

We had better luck writing the cutoff into the
original sales contract, which larger companies shrug at - of
course they're going to stay current in their OS software.
Little companies are not nearly as happy go lucky about
buying the new OS, installing it or getting PTFs for it.

I would expect the support cutoff to be in the sales contract. I would think that even the smallest
customer would understand that as a ISV selling System I software your development machine needs to be
supported by IBM. (Today that would mean TGTRLS(v5r1))

Heck to be honest, I'd understand if an ISV told me that their next version would support only OS
versions currently supported by IBM. TGTRLS(v5r3). Again, I'm coming from a small shop background.

If you're an ISV selling to small organisations, you have a
very different customer base compared to large organisations,
which is a very different problem from standalone companies
with their own IT staff.

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