Rich, that is really scary to think about but I lived it recently.
My firm had a 3rd party support company for overnight monitoring. They were
in place before I was hired. They were supposed to provide "expert"
IBM i operational after hours assistance.
We provided a script of things to specifically us about if they cropped up (rarely by the way).
Our experience was qsysopr messages being answered incorrectly, HMC incidents
being handled badly and other issues.
We even had to walk a few after hours personnel trough how to read a Joblog or find it.
Very disappointing. I'd rather handle it myself with an occasional after hours notification
from ROBOT or even an SNDSMTPEMM program message.
Respectfully,
Michael Mayer
IBM i on Power System Admin
ERMCO-ECI
2225 Industrial Rd
Dyersburg, Tennessee 38024
Office and OnCall: 731.676.4318
Cell: 518.641.8906
Email: michael.mayer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://www.ermco-eci.com
IBM i Personal Blog:
https://ibmireference.blogspot.com
"Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts".
-----------------------------
4. RE: Annual Maintenance (Rich Loeber)
------------------------------
message: 4
date: Wed, 15 Nov 2023 15:49:39 +0000
from: Rich Loeber <rich@xxxxxxxxx>
subject: RE: Annual Maintenance
Brad,
I concur about the issue of brain drain on the part of customers. I find myself having to explain what a joblog is and how to look at it to find out what is going on. A lot of the time, customers can figure things out on their own if they just take the time to look. I would hazard a guess that 1/3rd of the email support responses that I send to customers include instructions on how to create a joblog listing and where to find it.
Rich Loeber
Kisco Systems
-------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Brad Stone
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 9:48 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Annual Maintenance
<Vendor>
I've increased our prices a little each year (5% or so) due to inflation (which in the last 2-3 years has been nuts and undeniable) and partially due to adding new features.
Another thing we look at is the amount and type of support we are giving outside the scope of our products. The last few years as the experts retire they are replaced by people who obviously aren't trained. If I have to explain to a customer how to add a library to a library list or create a job log and send it to me, that's extra time on my part that I shouldn't have to do. (Actually, I'm thinking about changing how we offer support because of this... ) This probably doesn't apply to anyone on this list... but any ISV will probably agree this is sort of an issue and only getting worse.
It's also a reason I created a free application that they just run a command and it will automatically create the job log and forward it to my system.
Everything is going up in price. 35% seems a little steep, but not outrageous from what I've seen with other items/services. I'm seeing anywhere between 15-25% or so with expenses. Once in a while I see higher. Electricity and NG along with other fuel, food, etc have spiked a lot.
My mom is a huge "price is right person" in real life and she mentions the inflation every day. She remembers what she paid for eggs, bread, milk and fruit, etc every year. :) </Vendor>
On Wed, Nov 15, 2023 at 8:33?AM Greg Wilburn < gwilburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Over the past several years, ONE of our software vendors has increased
their annual maintenance more than 35% (2021-2024).
When I asked how they justified this increase, they pointed me to the
"Services less energy" Consumer Price Index (one of the higher indexes).
Regardless, the maintenance was supposed to be 20% of the actual cost
of the software. When I asked for the current prices of the modules
we own, they provided a number that "backed into" the maintenance that
they billed me, exactly. I know it can't be right, because we bought
a module in 2021
- the price they quoted now was 55% higher.
I'm not posting this to grip (well, maybe a little) - just wondering
if anyone else is seeing increases like this?
Is this the only software vendor increasing maintenance costs at these
rates?
TIA
Greg
midrange.com
