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

[PC <paul4004 () gmail com>]

This particular product is often used by the SMB types.  This changes
things a bit.  While I disagree with paying for signature updates you
didn't use (It's a service, and I don't care about their fixed costs, I
went into it knowing I'd have a license for the signatures as they were
expired), I do understand where they are coming from for software/firmware
development.  Unfortunately, they don't decouple the two.

However, this particular vendor is bad in a market where gear often passes
hands or goes lapsed for years.  After a certain point (IE: 1 yr), you
shouldn't have to true-up.  This particular company makes your 3-year
lapsed appliance pay for 3 years of missed updates, at which point you
might as well just throw it in the garbage.

Same thing with my license plates -- if they go for 11 months or less, I
have to "true up".  If I put a car in storage for over a year, I can
purchase a new registration.


On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 11:04 AM, James M Keller <jmkeller () houseofzen org>wrote:

> 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.
>
> --
> ---
> James M Keller