Re: SSA Licensing Fees and OGS

[DAsmussen@xxxxxxx]

Rick (et al),

I've expressed my opinion on this in the past, but it's been a while so here
goes -- SSA should provide OGS _free of charge_ to _anyone_ that wants it.
The reasons for this are numerous, but here are a few:

1.  No security information is compromised on the OGS web site.
2.  Independent consultants of lesser virtue, which is all many companies can
afford to hire, would have access to up-to-date information.
3.  Customers might find solutions to problems that would cause them to
re-establish their service agreements in order to receive BMR's.
4.  Potential customers would see the wealth of information provided,
potentially spurring new sales of BPCS.
5.  The sharing of user ID's and passwords between members and non-members
would cease, thus clarifying actual site usage for SSA GT.

If you're not going to upgrade hardware or software, you are running live
with no issues, you have source code, and you have a proficient technical
staff, I'm not sure why you would want to continue the service agreements.
If you answered no to any of the previous, keep the contract.  Advice in this
arena is tough however, because in the latter "pre-GT" days contracts were
being written in more formats than MS/Word has fonts.  Review your contract,
talk to peers about theirs, and decide whether or not dropping the service
agreements would be sensible in _your_ situation.  If you haven't used
support in a while, remember that "Help Desk" is _FAR_ more helpful under GT
than it was in "ye olden days"...

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." -- Vince Lombardi

In a message dated 12/27/01 12:43:05 PM US Eastern Standard Time,
RickCarter@holley.com writes:

> We have always renewed the OGS but only use the service a handful of times
>  per year.  We rarely call the Help Desk and version 6.1.01 is stable
>  enough, that we have only downloaded a few BMR's this past year.   It's a
>  struggle to keep paying for the service when we're not using much of it.  I
>  renewed it the last year mainly for the issues with the license key with
>  new hardware.  We also like to stay current and would plan on going to V8
>  within the next 12 months but the ever rising cost of OGS makes this a very
>  difficult decision.