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Thread Upcoming Price Increases and Support Plan Changes
Sat, Feb 23 2013 11:11 AMPermanent Link

Tim Young [Elevate Software]

Elevate Software, Inc.

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Email timyoung@elevatesoft.com

Beginning Monday, April 1, 2013, two major changes will be instituted at
Elevate Software, and this email is to notify you in advance of these
changes so that you can plan accordingly.

Price Increases for Products
============================

The price for our DBISAM and ElevateDB products will increase slightly.  The
following are the price increases that will go into effect on April 1, 2013:

Products
-----------

ElevateDB VCL Standard - $299.00
ElevateDB VCL Standard with Source Code - $429.00
ElevateDB VCL Client-Server - $579.00
ElevateDB VCL Client-Server with Source Code - $749.00

ElevateDB LCL Standard with Source Code - $159.00

ElevateDB DAC Standard - $299.00
ElevateDB DAC Standard with Source Code - $619.00
ElevateDB DAC Client-Server - $579.00
ElevateDB DAC Client-Server with Source Code - $849.00

DBISAM VCL Standard - $269.00
DBISAM VCL Standard with Source Code - $399.00
DBISAM VCL Client-Server - $549.00
DBISAM VCL Client-Server with Source Code - $719.00

DBISAM ODBC Standard - $269.00
DBISAM OCBC Standard with Source Code - $619.00
DBISAM ODBC Client-Server - $549.00
DBISAM ODBC Client-Server with Source Code - $849.00

DBISAM CLX Standard - $269.00
DBISAM CLX Standard with Source Code - $399.00
DBISAM CLX Client-Server - $549.00
DBISAM CLX Client-Server with Source Code - $719.00


New Support Plan Policies
=========================

Our existing support plan policy has served our customers well, and we have
been very hesitant about changing it, but we have encountered some major
issues with the existing policy since it was instituted in early 2008:

1) The unlimited nature of the existing support plan policy has led to
over-use by some customers, and this is causing us to lose significant
amounts of money in terms of developer time that is not covered by the costs
of the support plans themselves.  We have spent a lot of time recently
analyzing the support usage by customers and found that in some extreme
cases customers are requiring 60+ hours of support (email, phone, and Skype)
in a year and paying $159 for it.  This leaves us "in the hole" by thousands
of dollars.

2) The over-use by some customers is also mirrored by under-use, or non-use,
by other customers.  These customers tend to be developers that are fairly
proficient and rely primarily on the manuals and documentation for finding
answers to issues.  Because of this, these customers are more interested in
getting new features and bug fixes as quickly as possible.  However, due to
the issue of over-usage, these customers are also being short-changed as the
number of minor releases and bug fixes that they would normally get are
reduced greatly due to the fact that development time is being consumed by
support time.  This is extremely unfair to these customers who are, in
effect, subsidizing the other customers that are using up the majority of
the support time.

3) We are receiving a lot of support questions that would normally be
considered general programming questions instead of questions that directly
relate to our products.  We are happy to provide consulting to those that
need such assistance, but we cannot do so free of charge and you will need
to get a quote from us for such services.

4) In many cases, we are receiving emails from customers that have obviously
not taken the time to refer to the introductory portions of the manual or
the FAQ section of the web site.  There is sufficient documentation and
online help available for our products, so you will be able to answer most
of your basic questions without needing to contact us for support.

5) We are receiving support inquiries from customers of customers.  These
aren't particularly frequent, but it happens often enough to be an issue
since many times these customers are calling us on the phone or chatting
with us on Skype.

Please do not misunderstand, we are not trying to place blame on our
customers for utilizing the support that we have agreed to provide based
upon our existing support plan policy.  It is just a simple fact that we
need to implement the following changes in order to make our support systems
more efficient, cost-effective, and fair to all customers:

1) What is currently referred to as a support plan will now be known as a
subscription.  The cost will stay the same, but the actual support portion
will be split out as a separate charge for what we are now calling a
"support session".  A support session is comprised of an initial point of
contact via email, phone, or Skype, and any subsequent follow-up that is
necessary to resolve the issue to the customer's satisfaction.  Each initial
point of contact will require the following information:

Customer #
Customer Name
Contact Name of Person Requesting Support
Brief description of issue/question

If any of this information is not provided, then you will not receive
support, period.  The only exception to this will be a prospective customer
that has not purchased yet.

At the initial point of contact, the customer contact will receive a support
acknowledgement that will include a unique support session number.  This
number will be required for all follow-up correspondence with our support
staff, and you will be required to keep all correspondence limited to the
initial subject.

Note:
This initial point of contact will not be with an actual developer, but
rather a customer support person.  Once everything is in order and you have
received a support acknowledgement, then you will be contacted by a
developer to continue the support session.

Each support session will cost $19, and you will be able to purchase as many
support sessions as you need.  The support sessions are not time-limited
like the yearly subscriptions, so they will be valid until you use them.  At
any time, you will be able to view both your existing subscription and
support session information on our web site, just as you can now with the
existing support plans.

2) Any support sessions that are the result of a product defect or bug will
be credited to the customer.  However, we expect customers that are aware of
a bug up-front to use the incident report submittal form on our web site to
submit the bug.  This saves us the time of manually entering incident
reports into our incident report database.

3) All current, valid support plans (now subscriptions) will be
grandfathered with a number of support sessions equal to the value (rounded)
of your current support plan(s), and these will automatically be credited to
your customer records.  For example, if you have a current ElevateDB
Client-Server support plan that cost $159, then you will be credited with 8
support sessions.

4) Any new subscription purchases will entitle the customer to bug fixes and
minor releases only, for a year starting from the date of the subscription
purchase.

5) All new product purchases will include the first year's subscription and
a specific number of support sessions that will vary by product.

6) The support forums will continue to be free and primarily peer support.
We will still be checking in occasionally to answer questions, but the
primary method of direct support will be via email, phone, or Skype (support
sessions).

We feel that these changes will accomplish our goals of allowing those that
don't require a large amount of support to forego bearing any extra cost,
while those that do require more support to be able to purchase such support
in a cost-effective manner that isn't limited by a time period.  It will
also allow us to concentrate more on our development efforts and get out
minor releases and bug fixes in a more timely manner.

We will be sending out emails with more information on the implementation of
these changes before they go into effect on April 1, 2013.

As always, we are grateful for each and every one of our customers, and look
forward to continuing our relationships with you all.
Sun, Feb 24 2013 5:09 PMPermanent Link

Adam H.

Hi Tim,

Firstly, I must say that I have always found you to be fair, always
trying to err on the side that benefits your customers.

As others have mentioned previous... $20 per support question is
definitely on the cheaper side of things, but somehow I think that it's
probably more designed as a deterrent to people who use your support /
time constantly for simple things that they can work on themselves, or
get from the forums, etc.

A wise person once pointed out to me that 80% of my time is most likely
taken up by 20% of their customers, and in may cases these are the
customers that do like to penny pinch. The solution to free up my time
is to increase my charges slighty. This doesn't impact on real
customers, but those who want something for nothing normally get deterred.

As such, I wouldn't be surprised if your plans will work quite
effectively to cut down on a lot of support you get directly whilst not
really hurting those who really do need dedicated support.

And I think you need to do this. You now have 3 products, DBISam, EDB,
and WebBuilder (who knows what you're dreaming up of next... an
operating system? <vbg>) and I am very impressed (and releaved) that you
are still putting time into ye old DBISam with support, maintenance
changes and tweaks, and if this is what it takes to be able to continue
to be able to support like that - I'm behind you 100%!

One thing that has been raised here by Arthur that I can understand is
the ability to get answers as quickly as possible without having to
bounce back and forth to confirm that one is willing to spend the cash
for ASAP answers.

As a suggestion, maybe customers wishing to get those could tag their
emails as High Importance, or do something else that basically confirms
that they're happy to pay for support regardless of whether it's a
newsgroup question to get the answer ASAP.

(Personally, I find in the majority of situations I get quicker replies
from the newsgroup from time to time considering I'm over the other half
of the world and you're normally in bed when I'm dreaming up questions
Smileand it's only those where I'm really needing specialist help, or
have had no response on the NG, or sometimes have found a bug (or think
I've found a bug that's not a bug <vbg>) that I contact directly, but I
can understand where he may be coming from).

As for the price increase - I've always believed your products have
always been pretty reasonably priced too and a small increase in price
is quite probably due.

You have a lot of customers that are small developers with small
clients, that need to keep their overheads down - and it seems obvious
that you are very considerate of them with this support structure, which
I think is fantastic!

(Either that, or maybe I'm just in a good mood as I'm about to take a
couple of weeks holidays shortly Smiley

Cheers

Adam.
Mon, Feb 25 2013 11:58 AMPermanent Link

Tim Young [Elevate Software]

Elevate Software, Inc.

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Email timyoung@elevatesoft.com

Adam,

<< As a suggestion, maybe customers wishing to get those could tag their
emails as High Importance, or do something else that basically confirms that
they're happy to pay for support regardless of whether it's a newsgroup
question to get the answer ASAP. >>

Sam and I were discussing this very topic this morning in reference to
Arthur's suggestions.  I think I'm going to add a flag to the customer
records to indicate that a customer wants to bypass any "filtering" done at
the initial point of contact, and that this will be an option that customers
can request in order to make sure that they get responses as fast as
possible.  As always, we'll let everyone know the full scoop on how
everything works before the rollout on April 1st.

Thanks,

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com
Tue, Feb 26 2013 4:13 AMPermanent Link

Roy Lambert

NLH Associates

Team Elevate Team Elevate

Adam / Tim / Anyone

<<As others have mentioned previous...>>

<<Sam and I were discussing this very topic this morning in reference to
Arthur's suggestions.>>

Have I lost a newsgroup somewhere?

Roy
Wed, Feb 27 2013 12:23 PMPermanent Link

Tim Young [Elevate Software]

Elevate Software, Inc.

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Email timyoung@elevatesoft.com

Roy,

<< Have I lost a newsgroup somewhere? >>

SmileSome of these were coming up in both the DBISAM and ElevateDB
Announcements groups.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com


Wed, Feb 27 2013 2:14 PMPermanent Link

Roy Lambert

NLH Associates

Team Elevate Team Elevate

Tim

><< Have I lost a newsgroup somewhere? >>
>
>SmileSome of these were coming up in both the DBISAM and ElevateDB
>Announcements groups.

Hmm I'm going to have to do some investigation. I'm subscribed to almost all of your NGs including those. Maybe the electrons gost lost on the way up here, or wandered off to sunnier climbs.

Roy
Thu, Feb 28 2013 7:08 AMPermanent Link

Roy Lambert

NLH Associates

Team Elevate Team Elevate

Tim


I eventually had to delete the three announcement newsgroups and resubscribe. Its very strange because TMaN isn't supposed to miss things and I have an option of going back and re-downloading stuff. I wonder if its due to the server crash you had some time ago which has caused things to get out of sync.

I just hope I'm not missing stuff from the other ngs.

Roy Lambert
Thu, Feb 28 2013 12:21 PMPermanent Link

Tim Young [Elevate Software]

Elevate Software, Inc.

Avatar

Email timyoung@elevatesoft.com

Roy,

<< I eventually had to delete the three announcement newsgroups and
resubscribe. Its very strange because TMaN isn't supposed to miss things and
I have an option of going back and re-downloading stuff. I wonder if its due
to the server crash you had some time ago which has caused things to get out
of sync. >>

It may be due to the duplicate nature of the postings.  Is that, perhaps,
tripping it up ?

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com
Thu, Feb 28 2013 1:17 PMPermanent Link

Roy Lambert

NLH Associates

Team Elevate Team Elevate

Tim


><< I eventually had to delete the three announcement newsgroups and
>resubscribe. Its very strange because TMaN isn't supposed to miss things and
>I have an option of going back and re-downloading stuff. I wonder if its due
>to the server crash you had some time ago which has caused things to get out
>of sync. >>
>
>It may be due to the duplicate nature of the postings. Is that, perhaps,
>tripping it up ?

It handles cross posting (which I think is what you mean by duplicates) very happily. I tried a repair before deleting and resubscribing just in case but no different. Its working now so unless I notice something else weird I'll just pretend it didn't happen.

Roy
Fri, Mar 1 2013 6:27 AMPermanent Link

Michael Riley

ZilchWorks

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Roy Lambert wrote:

>I eventually had to delete the three announcement newsgroups and
>resubscribe. Its very strange because TMaN isn't supposed to miss
>things and I have an option of going back and re-downloading stuff. I
>wonder if its due to the server crash you had some time ago which has
>caused things to get out of sync.

Roy,

What is TMan?

--
Michael Riley
GySgt USMC Retired
http://capecodgunny.blogspot.com/
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