RE: Tier pricing (was chgsysval QMODEL) -- MIDRANGE-NONTECH

~~~I offer my comments so people can see how a vendor is thinking,

(Brad) Nice to see a full picture. I think the term "maintenance" in itself
may differ radically from you and another shop, so without experiencing the
different flavors, it would be impossible for someone like me to determine
what kind of maintenance you are speaking of. Only that another particular
maintenance prohibits business in one way or another.
By the way, I was speaking only of key re-generation, over the phone, not a
request for maintenance or any other services.
Just the 18 digits to continue running code on the new box, 15 minutes of
support time. (Not that simple anymore, huh?)

Unfortunately those same tight-budgeted IT Depts. (as directed I am sure)
wait till 'IT' is severely limiting the business to upgrade. It is
officially a crisis then, right? Not a good time to find out you can't
afford it after all.


~~~90% of the
~~~time it is because they are having a big problem, and they want help.

Your absolutely right, it is 100% the buyer that should keep himself/herself
informed.
I guess sometimes that can't be helped. The pressure to give in to other
management goals seems to be a year or two before all those problems crop
up, which by that time "fallguy #1" is long gone. (I say this from watching
it on TV, not experience) Hey, this has been on TV for a year now (Enron
,etc), finally I understand.

~~~other time, pcv valve when suggested. Drove it 56,000 miles, the
~~~battery went dead so I traded it in.

So how many of us do this? Is it skewed to the IT folks? I have one with
miles at 44K and one at 45K and I am not on maintenance. (You know,
maintenance, the 3rd party auto service vendor that you never meet, that
excludes "things that move" in that contract, and that *might* answer the
phone?)

Not a battery, but I could not get the oil plug out of the wife's Mustang,
nobody else would touch it except Ford (for around $300 --"major oil pan
work") so I convinced her it was time to trade.
Of course the Ford place knew about it and if they sell the car as is then
they are probably the average Joe.
And I am glad IT has not matured enough and become simplistic enough to
attract those Joe's, or has it?

About the software, it seems to be such a tricky situation, I think it is
really a combination of who has the upper hand and what each must do to
thrive, vendor and company. This is the first period in history where (1)
bigger vendor software installations are finally getting too old to keep if
left as is (2) the user/customer company no longer has an army of
programmers or programmers with understanding of the legacy stuff (3) They
never knew to continue budgeting after the programmers left.

In the good light you painted, I think I understand. In a poorer light that
I hope never materializes, it's like saying,
[the 1993 Buick alternator is no longer supported, but if you upgrade to the
new super-gizmo 1999 model V6.0 and sign up for maintenance we will issue
you the 18 digit key required for it to work, as long as you own your car
but never enhance any electrical part of your car. If the 18 digit key
detects a new power consumption(s), it will leave you stranded in traffic.
By the way, this is our only solution, you can of course switch to another
car brand altogether or get a motorcycle.
In the mean time, your car will remain inoperable, although unofficially we
possess the means to enable the key for that 1993 model. In fact if you pay
for all the new stuff, we can issue the 18 digit key for the 1992 model and
you can of course continue to use the old model at your own risk.]

(I know this is bad analogy/case of exaggeration/exception to the rule) and
I hope this never really happens to any of the good folks out there. But
this it what it sounds like on this end.

Mark Villa in Charleston SC