Re: Collecting data for article on Software Migration on new Hardware

Well that is going to depend on the terms of the license I would say. One company may have the "You purchased it, you can use it forever" thinking in their license. Others may not. IBM does include this for example with IBM i. Once you put IBM i on a machine, assuming you do not transfer it to another machine, you can use it forever. Maintenance of that is of course different. If you stop paying SWMA you stop getting PTFs. You also may not call for support.

IBM will not let you transfer that license to another piece of hardware for free. They have deals now and then which make it cheaper but no matter you Still need to have SWMA on it to transfer it.

If your contract says "use for life" and it does not have language that limits you to the current machine (by tier or serial number or ...) and the company wants a big fee, then engage lawyer and let the law decide what the contract says.

If you do not have that clause in your license (and most don't any more, at least at the ERP level) then you must honor those terms. Pay the money, get the keys. After all you do want the vendor to stay in business.

Now how much should that fee be? That is the 64bit question. My customers are not in general upset for a couple hundred dollars fee for updating the vendors database, generating new keys, and such. The vendor is in fact incurring costs there.

Additionally if your original software was licensed for 'X' CPW and unlimited users and now you are switching to '10x' or '25x' CPW then that's an issue too as suddenly you could gain massively more from the software. Additional cost may be warranted to maintain your license.

If you are licensed for 200 users though and you're staying at 200 users. And you have that 'for life' clause in your contract that is when adding that $10K or $100K (I have seen $1,300,000!) charge is flatly wrong. As a vendor you lose credibility and customers. Any short term financial gain is fleeting. These are the guys Pete is after.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 8/19/2016 5:31 PM, mlazarus wrote:

Larry,

AFAIK, when application software is purchased (e.g. an ERP system),
that software is licensed to the customer. They can generally use it in
perpetuity. In order for the vendor to have some semblance of control
over where it is run (tier, number of LPARs, etc.) the algorithm tends
to tie it to the serial number.

Maintenance, on the other hand, is a service that is contracted with
customer. It usually includes tech support and upgrades. If the
customer chooses to forgo that service, why should that impact their
ability to upgrade their hardware (assuming the same tier, LPARs, etc.)?

-mark

On 8/19/2016 3:29 PM, DrFranken wrote:

IBM will not give you new keys for hardware that's not currently
licensed, why should other vendors? You stopped paying them for
maintenance or support so what entitles you to new keys? It doesn't
matter if 'it's easy'. It's also 'easy' to duplicate a DVD and give
it to a friend instead of paying for one of your own. It's easy to
copy software and install it on another PC. That doesn't make it legal.

I completely agree with what Pete is doing here but anyone who thinks
they deserve keys for free when they are technically not even a
customer any longer is in my opinion flatly wrong.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 8/19/2016 10:01 AM, mlazarus wrote:

Rob,

Why should there be back maintenance or a penalty to generate a new
license key? We're not talking about someone getting a new version of
the software. We're talking about updating some paperwork/database for
something they have already paid for and would like to continue to use.
The software company did not provide the maintenance services nor the
updates, so why would those charges be fair to the customer?

-mark

On 8/19/2016 8:39 AM, Rob Berendt wrote:

I think those who have dropped support from their vendor and still
expect
freebies or the users who have continued maintenance to be penalized
for
doing so are wrong. IOW, if you dropped maintenance on your ERP
package
and you now want a new key for the new hardware do not be surprised if
they want back maintenance plus a penalty. Better they should
"rape" the
people who didn't write them a check for a long time and probably won't
after this upgrade than they should "rape" those who dutifully pay
their
maintenance.

Does the fact that someone dropped maintenance on a software contract
show
up as a red flag during a SOX audit? It should. Look at the potential
liability they've exposed their company to if their existing hardware
dies
and they need to run it on new hardware.
Having recently been purchased by a public I can see how that would
easily
be in there, with all the rest of the pain we're going through.


Rob Berendt