[SYS21] Re: Minimum Number of Users -- SYSTEM21

It is amazing that you bring up this topic. We were running on a 720-2064
P30 group in and we had upgraded from a 510-2144 P30 group 3 years ago and
did not incounter the minimum number of users upgrade charge at that time.
We recently upgraded our 720-2064 to an 820-2437 P30 group and we got hit
will the minimum users upgrade charge of $96K+. According to the agreement,
it looks like we are not getting any additional licenses for the upgrade
charge. It looks like we are getting hit for change the processor in the
box. After review of our contract with GEAC/JBA it does mention that there
is a minimum number of users per processor and there maybe charges incurred
during upgrades of the hardware.

I agree totally with you that it is completely unfair and should be
discussed. We thought by going to user based pricing several years ago that
we would avoid any hardware required upgrade charges, but we where wrong. We
are currently using all of our licenses and yes I could use more, but we get
by on what we have. I run other applications on the same box and required
the box to be upgrade due to the other applications. Why should I have to
pay for upgrade charges for something where I am not requiring anymore
users? We have never receive the minimum number of users table that you are
refering to. I would imagine that the minimum number of users table would
have to be updated each time IBM anounces a new ISeries and I would think
that GEAC would send the table out to all of us for future planning.

I know that we have other software that is currently tiered based, but they
are using IBM current tier for charges. When we upgraded recently, we only
got hit with the GEAC upgrade.

Thanks,
Greg Martin
Director, AS/400 Systems
Plastech Engineered Products, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Watkins, Rick [mailto:rwatkins@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 10:19 AM
To: 'JBAUSERS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [SYS21] Minimum Number of Users


Minimum (?) number of users.
 
Although this subject has been discussed before I would like to resurrect
it. 
 
In reviewing the past thread, there appears to be a number of
inconsistencies in representations made by JBA (Geac) to users.  For
instance Hitachi was told that the minimum number of users for a 720 was 170
- recently we were told in writing that the number was 127.  This would lead
one to look at the processor not the model number.  In our case we purchased
150 licenses for a 510 P30 (processor), moved to a 720 P20 and incurred no
phantom upcharge, then moved to an 820 and back up to the P30 processor (our
original level) and are now being told that we need 39 more licenses. (we
own 150 and only use about 120).  We were also told at the time of sale that
there would be no tier based pricing - only per user pricing (naturally that
salesperson is long gone).  What we weren't told is that Geac would be the
one to tell us the minimum number of users we have in our facilities.
 
Also in the past thread it was stated by some customers that they were given
a schedule of AS400 models and the minimum number of users.  Did everyone
receive this schedule?  Does any outside agency play a part in determining
the minimum user number or is Geac free to do whatever they please?  Doesn't
this practice seem counter- productive to their partnership with IBM since
it discourages hardware upgrades?  By the way, we were chastised for not
purchasing our upgraded hardware through Geac and the implication was made
that if we had, this upcharge could have been avoided.  How?
 
I cannot understand how we are required to buy something for which we have
no use.  And it goes without saying, that this larger number of users will
be used to determine annual maintenance costs ad infinitum.  It would appear
that Geac wants to drive users to dropping maintenance.  
 
If anyone can shed light on this usurious practice please do so.  If anyone
else has an 820 P30 machine I would appreciate knowing have many minimum
users you were required to have licenses for.   I think this will be a nice
discussion topic during the Q & A at Mr. Quinn's Alliance presentation.
 
 
Rick Watkins 
Director of BPR
RJF International Company