BEX v3.1 re-charging vs. maintenance $

My organization has been using Backup express for about 4 years, and faithfully paying 20% annual maintenance/support. Now we're interested in version 3.1 and *this* upgrade is apparently something we have to pay extra for... about 3x our annual maintenance (plus the maintenance) plus now we are interested in the Advanced Recovery technology, and that "add-on" is going to cost another 1x our annual maintenance.

We like the software, but I'm probably going to dump the product. Their own current description of support says it includes "functional and performance enhancements." And I have no way of knowing when they are going to hold us up for more money in the future.

My question is, is this typical with Syncsort?... and/or its competitors? Is everybody else having to buy-again to get the 3.1 upgrade... and the Advanced Recovery technology?

We knew when we bought BEX that it was expensive but we didn't expect to get held-up for more money down the liine. I almost wonder if the company is experimenting with us to see how a customer might react.

Mike,
I am a software engineer for Backup Express and read your posting on the Backup Central Forum. As with all versions of Backup Express including 3.1, if you are current with maintenance, the upgrades, patched, etc are included. If you are interested in new features, these items need to be purchased. We did introduce new service levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum) which may have brought up you maintenance costs. I would check with your Syncsort sales rep to get a price quote each service level to find one that fits your budget.

[quote]Mike,
I am a software engineer for Backup Express and read your posting on the Backup Central Forum. As with all versions of Backup Express including 3.1, if you are current with maintenance, the upgrades, patched, etc are included. If you are interested in new features, these items need to be purchased. We did introduce new service levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum) which may have brought up you maintenance costs. I would check with your Syncsort sales rep to get a price quote each service level to find one that fits your budget.[/quote]

With all due respect. I don't know of many other vendors that do this. It really irks me as a customer that you pay expensive support and maintenance to cover you on future upgrades to them be told that you have to buy "new features". How can one budget for this? It makes it very difficult to support and sell products to upper management. I am also a long term SyncSort customer SERIOUSLY think of ditching the product unless I get these "upgrades" as part of my support and maintenance. I know of plenty other customers who feel the same way. BEX is an expensive product to start with and this type of vendor behaviour (and syncsort are not alone) is usually the final nail in the coffin.

I have a request for porposal written ready to go. The ball is not in my court.

Customers with active maintenance contracts are entitled to receive upgrades to new BEX releases at no additional cost for their currently licensed components. As any other vendor does, Syncsort introduces some enhancements to existing features and some new licensable features with new releases. Customers get the enhancements and additional robustness to their currently licensed features as one of the benefits of their maintenance contracts. New or existing features that are separately licensable but have not been purchased can be added by contacting your Syncsort account manager to purchase these components.

The process dproefrock IS actually quite common in the backup world, and
I've seen it outside the backup world as well. I'll give you a few
examples.

NBU & NW always had disk-based backups (DSUs & AFTDs, respectively). But
then they started doing fancy things like automated staging and
clonings/duplications and such. If you wanted those fancy new features, you
had to buy the ADVANCED disk backups features -- maintenance or not. The
same was true of encryption management, NBU vault, deduplication, etc.

I'd say the REVERSE is what's rare, where a vendor comes out with something
big and cool and DOESN'T decide to charge extra for it. The only example I
can think of is NetApp's dedupe in their filers. Just upgrade to the next
version of Data Ontap and it's there.

Your maintenance contract gets you tech support, and allows you to upgrade
to the version of the product that supports the next version of Windows,
Linux, Solaris, Oracle that didn't exist when you bought the product. But
it only supports the things you paid for. If you didn't pay for the Oracle
agent, you wouldn't expect to receive it on your next upgrade, would you?
Then why would you expect to receive another extra-price feature that didn't
even exist when you bought the product?

Which "upgrades" are you being asked to pay for?

-----Original Message-----
From: backup-express-bounces < at > backupcentral.com
[mailto] On Behalf Of dgjlee
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:48 AM
To: backup-express < at > backupcentral.com
Subject: [BEXP] BEX v3.1 re-charging vs. maintenance $

dproefrock wrote:
[quote]Mike,
I am a software engineer for Backup Express and read your posting on
[/quote]the Backup Central Forum. As with all versions of Backup Express including
3.1, if you are current with maintenance, the upgrades, patched, etc are
included. If you are interested in new features, these items need to be
purchased. We did introduce new service levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and
Platinum) which may have brought up you maintenance costs. I would check
with your Syncsort sales rep to get a price quote each service level to find
one that fits your budget.

With all due respect. I don't know of many other vendors that do this. It
really irks me as a customer that you pay expensive support and maintenance
to cover you on future upgrades to them be told that you have to buy "new
features". How can one budget for this? It makes it very difficult to
support and sell products to upper management. I am also a long term
SyncSort customer SERIOUSLY think of ditching the product unless I get these
"upgrades" as part of my support and maintenance. I know of plenty other
customers who feel the same way. BEX is an expensive product to start with
and this type of vendor behaviour (and syncsort are not alone) is usually
the final nail in the coffin.

I have a request for porposal written ready to go. The ball is not in my
court.

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