Re: SSA Licensing Fees and OGS

It would be nice if OGS were free and a lot of your
points are valid - however - don't look for anything
like that to ever happen anytime soon. A majority of
SSA GT's current revenue stream is the result of OGS.
In fact you can probably expect OGS rates to rise in
the future as SSA GT becomes more dependant on them to
stay in business. They will continue to offer support
for any version - but at a significant price.  The
older the version the more you will pay. I've heard of
a lot of client auditing going on in order to squeeze
more out of the installed base to correct the
inadequaties of the old company. When a company is not
selling many new software licenses all it has to fall
back on are it's maintenance (OGS) revenues to stay
afloat (much like CA in the past).  I would look very
closely at how much you are utilizing the help desk,
future plans to upgrade, and the need for bug fixes
when making your decision to ante up for another year.
 If you're on a stable version with relatively few
problems and don't desire to upgrade anytime soon, or
have a future exit strategy the continuance of OGS
makes little sense.
--- DAsmussen@aol.com wrote:
> 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.
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