RE: From the Believe or Not Department at MAPICS...

Hi All,

I just received the following article from AMR. It is very appropriate.  Due
to copyright issues I'll only quote a small piece of it.  You can access the
complete article at www.amr.com if you have a subscription.
________________________________

"Software Licensing and Maintenance: The Model Is Broken 

The Issue: Application software buyers are moderately unhappy about the way
that vendors charge for the use of their products, but they are furious
about the cost to maintain those products and the policies that the vendors
have established for enhancements and upgrades.  

Vendor policies endanger customer loyalty 

As new customer sales opportunities have diminished the past few years, most
application vendors have turned their efforts to selling products and
services back into their installed base.  Ironically, while the vendors all
claim they are now committed to long-term partnerships with their clients,
they have developed licensing structures and maintenance policies that are
endangering the customer loyalty and relationships that they say they want."


The article is quite lengthy and detailed.  It concludes with
recommendations for buyers and venders.

Just thought everyone would like to know that "the grass is not always
greener on the other side of the fence."

Kevin Fox
kdfox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: Shurge, Stephen (MTL) [mailto:sshurge@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 10:06 AM
To: 'MAPICS ERP System Discussion'
Subject: RE: From the Believe or Not Department at MAPICS...

Mapics:

I hope that some Mapics employees are taking notes of the feelings and
perceptions that the Mapics customers have about Mapics's upgrading pricing
policies.

Someone at Mapics should start doing something before there is no more
Mapics customers.

As you can see Mapics, customers are going to other softwares and by
inhibiting customers for growing to larger iSeries hardware Mapics is
digging their grave and committing suicide to the Mapics product line. 

It is sad that Mapics Management has lost sight of reality and the needs and
expectations of their customers.   

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: John C. Bradley [mailto:bradleyjohnc@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 12:32 PM
To: MAPICS ERP System Discussion
Subject: Re: From the Believe or Not Department at MAPICS...

We converted over to CMS400 on 1/1/2003.

John C. Bradley
Information Systems Manager
Stephenson & Lawyer, Inc.
3831 Patterson Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI  49512-4026
616-949-8100 extn 3120
bradj@xxxxxxxxxxx 
http://www.steplaw.com 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Oney, Vince (GEAE, Elano)" <Vince.Oney@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 9:10 AM


> What product did you end up with?
> 
> Vince Oney
> ELANO DIVISION OF UNISON


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