RE: Two good articles to read

That being said, IBM is as guilty as any ISV with regard to charging up the
wazoo for back payments. Do they still call it a "currency fee" if a
customer has fallen off maintenance and wants to open a new SWMA?

Many years ago, at a former customer in Indianapolis (big homebuilder), I
discovered the need to call the support line. I was told by the entitlement
clerk that the customer had been off maintenance for a little over a year.

When I brought this to the attention of the IT manager (a Window$ guy), he
told me he had been on the job for less than a year, and was unaware of the
IBM contract. He told me to get the ball rolling on a new SWMA. When I did
so, IBM told me they could handle the new paperwork, but that the customer
would first have to pony up $35,000 as the penalty for falling behind. I
forget the exact model of the system, but it was not a big honker.

The IT manager told me that IBM could go F themselves, and that he wanted me
to find a workaround for the problem. I did so, and headed home a couple
days later. That was the last I heard from that customer, until a couple
years later, one of their former employees called me from his new place of
employment. He told me his former employer plunged down the Microsoft path
for a new solution, and the AS/400 had been buried under the swimming pool
at one of the community rec centers that had been under construction.

Part of the moral of the story, I guess, is that vendors should also be
aware of how frequently their customers call for support, and factor that
into any penalties they charge. In this case, there had been exactly zero
calls to 1-800-IBM-SERV in the prior three years.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 409-267-4027
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul
Nelson
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2017 7:59 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Two good articles to read

<<Why should our payments be used to subsidize those who haven't been paying
maintenance?>>

Also the plight of us taxpayers. :-)

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 409-267-4027
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rob
Berendt
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2017 7:21 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Two good articles to read

Thank you Pete. I think the credit goes to Alex Woodie though.

I understand Larry's frustration. We are an Infor customer. Actually the
3rd they ever had and the oldest still running it. The only problem I
have with Larry's article is that we've been faithfully paying maintenance
all this time. Why should our payments be used to subsidize those who
haven't been paying maintenance?
I understand the frustration to people like you, Larry, Jim, etc who get
their bacon from peddling upgrades and losing sales because of this issue.
However these people were the ones being pennywise and pound foolish and
dropped maintenance. And will probably do so again.
I am willing to say it's not a "line in the sand" kind of issue though.
Perhaps a little back maintenance or resubscription fee followed by a
three year maintenance contract or some such thing.



Rob Berendt