Re: Vendor package pricing

This actually comes up often.. vendors, pricing, etc.

No one mentions names when complaining so we don't know who to support
and who not to.

And a lot of IBM i ISVs are either dying a slow death of getting
bought up by bigger ISVs.

If it was me the complaint was about, I'd want to hear it! And if
there's a good product with good support I'd also want to hear that...
even from IBM!

Example:
I had a customer call up yesterday morning having issues making his
system work with Office 365. He was on the phone for 2 days with IBM
trying to get it to work. No dice.

One of his BPs mentioned my software. He called and we had him up and
running in less than an hour sending emails through his Office 365
accounts.

When I told him the price (less than $600 a year), he wondered why IBM
just didn't say "hey, try this software from an ISV listed in our
solutions directory... it works great!" as he had already wasted MUCH
more than that on the phone with IBM support pulling his hair out.

All this time it took me 3 weeks to get an invoice for an IBM SWMA for
my development box via SNAIL MAIL on paper that looks like it went
through an old dot matrix printer.

So complaining generically isn't going to get grease to that squeaky
wheel, but supporting ISVs, whether closed source, open source, or
mixed, is the next best thing.

Yes, I am a little biased, but I was part of this whole IBM i
community before becoming an ISV as well.

Bradley V. Stone
www.bvstools.com
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