Platform Change Rules - Anyone else irritated?

[rbwoods]

We are on HP-UX and are looking into changing our platform onto linux to save thousands of dollars per year in maintenance costs. Because we have been a loyal customer of Progress since 1993 our 'trade-in' value is nearly worthless and Progress insists on charging us huge sums of money to make the change to linux even though we will be running the exact same product, just on a different machine. We have paid them that same huge sum of money in maintenance costs over the past 3 years (our product being valued at 'current retail prices') yet they value the 'trade-in' at what we paid in 1993. Has anyone else encountered their ridiculous policy? Is everyone else just accepting it? Tell me your stories! I want to hear from everyone who has or is about to encounter this policy of charging long time customers nearly the current retail price to change platforms. Please Speak Out!

R.B. Woods
IT Director
Metal-Fab, Inc.

 

[MurrayH]

I've got to say that I've seen / heard of this before. I don't think Oracle does change for a platform change .. does it?

Murray

 

[Richard Walsh]

We have been a Progress Software House since 1986 and have become very aware of this policy being applied in the UK. I have always considered it outrageous for Progress to attempt to do this. To any impartial outsider it would surely be considered sharp practice.
If prices were stable or you had purchased just last year then this policy would have much less effect. But since Progress has risen sharply in price over the years the policy penalises those who have been early contributors to Progress' increasing success.
I would be more accepting of it if the maintenance charges were based on the original lower purchase price but of course, as you point out, they are based on the latest list price.
Progress simply must re-consider this policy as I would doubt a single Progress VAR would consider it fair or ethical.
If Progress discontinue support for a particular platform (e.g. Interactive Unix) then you can move to a new supported platform without triggering this 'trade-in' mechanism.
However this is not enough. My view is that if you are under maintenance you should be able to move platforms at will, subject to any differences in the list prices of the platforms.

Richard Walsh
Director
RJW Services Ltd, Scotland

 

[MurrayH]

I totally agree. I wonder what will happen to all those Sun solaris Intel licenses when Progress stops supporting that platform?

 

[rbwoods]

"keep alive" post

I posted this to keep the thread alive. If you haven't responded PLEASE DO! I'm trying to get a feel for how many people know about this policy and who has been affected by it. R.B. Woods

 

[cmorgan]

Originally posted by MurrayH
I totally agree. I wonder what will happen to all those Sun solaris Intel licenses when Progress stops supporting that platform?

In the past when PSC has dropped support for a platform (VMS, CTOS, etc) they have waived the platform change fee for users of those platforms.

Solaris Intel and SCO Openserver are likely candidates for this exception in the near future.

 

[MurrayH]

Well that is good news BUT we must remember that a lot has changed in the world since last time an OS was no longer supported.

Murray

 

[dancar]

Platform Change

For PSC as with other vendors it is simply making money. The affects upon the user community are agreeably irresponsible but its money in the bank at PSC and at other product vendors that counts.
One method to consider; don't subscribe to the maintenance fee and pay for it all when its time. The cost of doing this "is" less than the continued hassle of product updates/upgrades. Most of which come with their own set of "bugs" requiring "patches" or "upgrades"... See the pattern? Its not just PSC either.
Shops need stability rather than another new inticing feature. If new features are what drives your IS/IT organization you are costing your company more than you are worth.
Real Programmers and Developers find a way to do the job with what they have. Stabilize your operations. Quit using new features/updates/upgrades as job security. - Unless you are a PSC App development company.
I said all that to say this: Don't pay the maintenance; then complain about the price of updates/change platforms, etc....

At PSC and other providers, money or the lack of it is what they will listen too. Let economics speak for you.

Politically In-Correct Disfunctional Disclaimer:
Content presented may or may not be representative of my beliefs, practices or experiences.

Just stirring the pot.
-Now I'm black-listed ... eh?

 

[rbwoods]

Unfortunately, PSC will charge you 'back maintenance' and catch you up to current before they will allow you to do an upgrade. So lapsing on maintenance isn't an option that saves any money. I also think the charge a 'penalty' for lapsing that if you gripe loud enough they MAY drop when you renew maintenance.

I continue to be disgusted with Progress and their licensing policy regarding platform changes. In the trade magazines I constantly read of organizations abandoning this or that proprietary platform for linux and saving 10,000's, 100,000's, or millions of dollars. I just did an analysis for our company and figured out that because we have been a Progress customer for 10 years it will actually COST us more money over a 4 year period of time to move to a commodity IBM server (10K est. cost) and linux than it will to purchase another 45K HP9000 and stick with HP-UX. All because of the steep penalty (essentially forcing us to completely rebuy the product we are already running) for the platform change. This completely goes against anything else in the industry and I find it pretty ridiculous.

We have, on the other hand, now devised a plan to rewrite our application a bit, begin to use open source databases where possible and do more 'connect/disconnects' when a user isn't busy doing work to save server connections. Our quick research has shown that we can save almost 100,000 dollars over 4 years by doing a bit of dramatic but simple reworking of our Progress application, getting well below 45 concurrent connections, converting to workgroup and converting to linux. Of course, we have to do a bunch of work to get the savings but it will make me feel very good to pay Progress so much less. A small 'jab' to their stupid policies and their bottom line.

R.B. Woods

Originally posted by dancar
For PSC as with other vendors it is simply making money. The affects upon the user community are agreeably irresponsible but its money in the bank at PSC and at other product vendors that counts.
One method to consider; don't subscribe to the maintenance fee and pay for it all when its time. The cost of doing this "is" less than the continued hassle of product updates/upgrades. Most of which come with their own set of "bugs" requiring "patches" or "upgrades"... See the pattern? Its not just PSC either.
Shops need stability rather than another new inticing feature. If new features are what drives your IS/IT organization you are costing your company more than you are worth.
Real Programmers and Developers find a way to do the job with what they have. Stabilize your operations. Quit using new features/updates/upgrades as job security. - Unless you are a PSC App development company.
I said all that to say this: Don't pay the maintenance; then complain about the price of updates/change platforms, etc....

At PSC and other providers, money or the lack of it is what they will listen too. Let economics speak for you.

Politically In-Correct Disfunctional Disclaimer:
Content presented may or may not be representative of my beliefs, practices or experiences.

Just stirring the pot.
-Now I'm black-listed ... eh?

 

[toby.Harman]

And yet we (loose generalisation here) continue to buy office productivity software, upgrading every few years and paying no maintenance.

The cost to a 50 person office of buying Microsoft Office for $200 per user is $10K. Every few years.

Maybe if Progress were to charge for upgrades of a 2 tier basis this might change peoples minds.

Tier 1. customer has Full Support. Flat Fee of something like $500-$1000, to cover media, admin, licences etc (and a tidy little profit). Or a trivial fee of something like $20 per user on db licences.

Tier 2. Customer has no support agreement. Upgrade Cost is 60% of list price of the software.

For Platform changes you have to go back to the fundamental pricing policy which can penalise Enterprise class hardware over commodity hardware. I would suggest you charge them an administration fee ($500?) and re-issue licences.

For a platform change with an upgrade you would use the greater of the two prices but not both.

All prices suggested in US$.

 

[Doug2]

Bad Corporate Policy.

I am convinced Progress policies in general are enforced without any rational thought about any future on-going business relationships with ISVs or end-users.

As someone else hinted at, they are there to keep PSC milking their established sales channels / user base and providing PSC the maximum short term income stream AND perhaps are driven by salesmen / account managers who have their stake in commissions.

The policies are overly complex, and are contradictory in several places.

I have now come to realise you first need to understand the implications of their different policies and then pick the ones which best suit your upgrade needs.
If you don't Progress will, and will more than likely cause bad-will between you & your end-users / finance department & kill a project (or future business) !. That is how bad their policies are.
(Dare I say corporate America & gouging in the same sentence at this point ? - What the hell yes I may !)
Being 100% open / honest about what you are doing is not the way to do it as I have recently learned to my own dismay. Please read on - I am honest to a fault on software user licensing HOWEVER..... for example requesting a "patch" upgrade (without disclosing a reason) for a CLIENT network license on the same version is gratis whereas needing that patch upgrade to allow you to run on a newly exchanged / leased PC which just happens to have WinXP on it COSTS you additional monies besides the privelege you have of paying the16% annual maintenance fees.

Sure 16% & cost of a client license is not that much - HOWEVER consider a 30 site say 30 user per site installation, several of the licenses being Enterprise level... wouldn't it be far better customer service to realise that, & keep that end-user sweet so additional monies for other REAL platform changes or user license additions would be willingly given versus systems being artifically constricted / designed to avoid the "bad" policy items.

Currently I am unsure if Progress are worse than any of their competition, regarding upgrade pricing policy but I will certainly be looking into this.

If we all accept what we are told by a company that has thus far ignored feedback from many of us we will ALL be worse off in the future. I am a firm believer in "voting with my next purchase" & strategic choices of development tools / vendors DO affect the next purchase, and sure it doesn't hurt them over night but usually things like this come home to roost !.

Good luck to you all, and I hope your technical & commercial dealings with Progress are better than my recent ones.

 

[dancar]

Progress policies

I must disagree with certain implications of your comments. Policies in general are enforced with what might be called "RATIONALIZED" thought.
Synical huh? Progress has completely "rationalized" these policies. Whether they are considerate of their customer base or not is certainly debatable.
And I say NO they are not considerate.
Having implemented a "Pro-Active" upgrade policy program back in the '80s for a highly successful CAD/CAM development house I know from experience what will work and what is detrimental to business. Who said Progress was in business for any "good will" and considered future on-going business at all. It's a "get it while you can" attitude towards its customer base that will cause an exedous.
I sometimes wonder if the customer service representatives at Progress are on full commission. - What a thought! I understand that some of their support personnel were independents at one time.
I believe you will find that per user M$ upgrades remain more costly than those of Progress but not by much any more. PSC (like so many others before them) is unfortunately following the MS$ path.
I say:
If having purchased the source code to an application a company should be able to migrate it to any platform desired without penalty. Media charges only for those on Maintenance Contracts. Pro-Rated fees for those whose Maintenance has ended and wish to renew. That's a fair policy - its just the $$ values that get in the way.

I am convinced Progress policies in general are enforced without any rational thought about any future on-going business relationships with ISVs or end-users.

As someone else hinted at, they are there to keep PSC milking their established sales channels / user base and providing PSC the maximum short term income stream AND perhaps are driven by salesmen / account managers who have their stake in commissions.

The policies are overly complex, and are contradictory in several places.

I have now come to realise you first need to understand the implications of their different policies and then pick the ones which best suit your upgrade needs.
If you don't Progress will, and will more than likely cause bad-will between you & your end-users / finance department & kill a project (or future business) !. That is how bad their policies are.
(Dare I say corporate America & gouging in the same sentence at this point ? - What the hell yes I may !)
Being 100% open / honest about what you are doing is not the way to do it as I have recently learned to my own dismay. Please read on - I am honest to a fault on software user licensing HOWEVER..... for example requesting a "patch" upgrade (without disclosing a reason) for a CLIENT network license on the same version is gratis whereas needing that patch upgrade to allow you to run on a newly exchanged / leased PC which just happens to have WinXP on it COSTS you additional monies besides the privelege you have of paying the16% annual maintenance fees.

Sure 16% & cost of a client license is not that much - HOWEVER consider a 30 site say 30 user per site installation, several of the licenses being Enterprise level... wouldn't it be far better customer service to realise that, & keep that end-user sweet so additional monies for other REAL platform changes or user license additions would be willingly given versus systems being artifically constricted / designed to avoid the "bad" policy items.

Currently I am unsure if Progress are worse than any of their competition, regarding upgrade pricing policy but I will certainly be looking into this.

If we all accept what we are told by a company that has thus far ignored feedback from many of us we will ALL be worse off in the future. I am a firm believer in "voting with my next purchase" & strategic choices of development tools / vendors DO affect the next purchase, and sure it doesn't hurt them over night but usually things like this come home to roost !.

Good luck to you all, and I hope your technical & commercial dealings with Progress are better than my recent ones.