Re: Next Version of JDE World requires i 7.1 -- MIDRANGE-L

Not a bad summary but I would add one additional option:

- Increase the cost of maintenance on the older versions as time goes on. This makes it financially acceptable for the software vendor and also gives an incentive to the customer to stay current with hardware O/S version and of course the vendor's software. If this sounds familiar it's the way IBM charges for hardware maintenance.

I certainly agree with the comment "Not sure I count them as a customer if they haven't send me a check in years!" Being a customer is definitely a two way street, a good or service is provided to the customer and the customer provides payment to the vendor. Too often customers thing us 'service vendors' should give away our expertise for free as the people who didn't pay for support seem to think they should get i 6.1 capable software for free.

I used to work for a guy who was very very big as a salesman. He often counseled the sales guys that sales was not two parts but three:
1) Get the order.
2) Deliver the product.
And most importantly:
3) Get the money!

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

On 4/24/2012 2:11 PM, rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Oh, I guarantee there will be those that do so. But, many of those are
probably already contemplating dropping Oracle maintenance anyway.
Figuring, we now have it working, we modified it and don't want the hassle
of putting on upgrades and redoing our mods, etc. Sort of like all the
people who dropped maintenance on SSA and then screamed bloody murder that
SSA wasn't going to give them the upgrade needed for i6.1 and above for
free like they did to all the people who stayed current with maintenance.
Then they claimed to be a 'customer' and how bad SSA treats their
'customers'. Well, I don't know if I would count someone as a 'customer'
if they haven't written me a check in years.

Software vendors have three venues to take:
- Limit their software features to only stuff that also runs on
discontinued hardware and software. Thus upsetting the customer base who
is most financially active with them.
- Limit their software to only current hardware and software, rapidly
taking advantage of the newest features. Pleasing to the most financially
active customers but very upsetting to some who may (or may not) be
current on maintenance.
- Multi versioning - Very expensive to the vendor. Requires banks of old
machines that they can't get fixes for. If they get inspired to use (for
example) a new RPG xml op code that's not supported on V4R5 do they then
have a 7.1 version and a V4R5 version that hand does it with lots of
parsing or whatnot?
- There's a fourth venue. They could claim to offer 'support'. But no
new software comes out. No new W2's, 1099's, tax compliance,etc. But if
anything existing stops working, they'll fire up that old machine and see
if they can duplicate the problem in their office or if they can blame it
on your mods. Throw a little fine print in the contract that exempts the
vendor from any new ANZOBJCVN type situations, like saying the maintenance
doesn't cover migrations to new hardware or OS.

> From our perspective, I'd rather see vendors like this than those who
still do not support 7.1 or 6.1.

Rob Berendt