Re: Well Lookie Here, Barracuda Networks tries to get me to fall into their trap again...

[James M Keller <jmkeller () houseofzen org>]

On 12/21/2011 3:22 PM, David Swafford wrote:
> In my position within the enterprise vertical,  backdating to the
> expiration (not the payment date) seems to be the norm.  Cisco does
> this on SmartNet, as does SolarWinds and a number of other vendors
> I've worked with.  We don't typically slip on the dates intentionally,
> but our procurement and legal groups have a habit of fighting over
> wording on the contracts.
>
> David.

Having worked in the past at a shop that sold managed support agreements
for software we sold - the overhead for staffing and code and
blacklisting type data sets are spread out in the yearly support
agreement.    A lapsed customer has not funded the delta changes in code
and data set from lapsed data to renewal date, but will get to take
advantage of the work.
While a new customer also will not fund these on a new starting
contract,  that is normally considered some cost of acquiring new
business.  

Now in some cases on the other end of the transaction I've found it
cheaper to buy 'new' then it was to 'true up' the support.    I haven't
found a vendor that wouldn't go that route, even if it involved getting
some escalation on the sales side first.    At that point it's the cost
of customer retention vs new business that the vendor needs to worry
about.    However if you are happy with the product, and the renewal
isn't more then 'new' purchases - we all shouldn't be baulking having to
'true up' contracts.

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James M Keller