Re: Counting users - rip-off

Good point Al. I'm afraid most vendors haven't even entertained the notion
that a client might actually be using other vendors' software as well as
their own!! Which of course most clients are, even if it's only a payroll
package or an EDI solution. And now, with big companies merging, we have
clients who run both JBA and BPCS, or both BPCS and SAP, not to mention all
the add-ons like XM/4 (Trax) and SPM etc.
Clare

----- Original Message -----
From: <MacWheel99@aol.com>
To: <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 6:52 PM
Subject: Re: Counting users - rip-off


> > Why do you consider this a rip-off. Purchasing licenses for a
predetermined
> > number of users is one of the market norms, for ANY platform
>
> If the nature of your enterprise is such that ALL YOUR COMPUTER USERS will
> need to use the SAME SOFTWARE PACKAGE then it is reasonable for the vendor
to
> price their software based on the power of the platform & number of users
on
> it.
>
> But if the nature of your enterprise is such that you need a computer
system
> powerful enough to support MULTIPLE SOFTWARE PACKAGES each with different
> bunches of users, and a few overlaps where some people use more than one
> package, but very few users in all of them, then this pricing model is
saying
> you need to have different software packages on DIFFERENT COMPUTERS so
that
> none of the computers exceed the user count that any one package is
imposing
> on the total box network.
>
> This flies in the face of the reasons why companies might be encouraged to
> network computers.
>
> Thus, the decision whether to have all the packages on one computer
system,
> or to have different computer systems for different packages, needs to
factor
> in what pricing methods the packages are using.
>
> Riddle me this.
> You have a home PC & it has enough power to do word processing & spread
sheet
> comfortably.  You decide to get a more powerful Pentium & other hardware
> ingredients so that you can download graphical pages from the internet
faster.
> Your Windows Vendor notices that you are now on a more powerful PC box &
> demands a higher software license price because you are getting more value
> from Windows because you are now getting more value from everything on
that
> box.  Is that fair & reasonable?  A lot of 400 software is priced that
way.
>
> Or put it another way.
> You have a network of PCs.
> A handful of clients are doing accounting software
> Another handful are doing Auto Cad engineering work
> A few more are doing payroll
>
> Should the payroll software be priced based on 2-3 people using the
software,
> the fact that you have 50 clients on the network even though only 2-3 are
> using this particular software, or the fact that you have 1,000 employees
in
> the payroll master?
>
> The sense of rip-off is that many people have been accustomed to paying
for
> software on one basis, and now some company jacks up the price.
>
> I think a license for software support should be related to the number of
> people who are likely to be calling the vendor for tech support, or
sending
> questions to MIS to forward to the vendor.  In the payroll example, 2-3 is
> the number of users of the software, plus perhaps management personnel
> outside the users who might want to know if the package can be upgraded to
> support this or that idea not now being exploited.
>
> MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
>
>
> +---
> | This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
> | To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
> | To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
> | To unsubscribe from this list send email to
MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
> | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator:
david@midrange.com
> +---

+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---