Re: [PLUG] OT: Linux Business Forum

["W. Chris Shank" <chris.shank@acetechgroup.com>]

I never said "renewable maintenance" when talking about the internet
licenses I saw during the dot-com hey-day. You misrepresented my
statement. I witnessed internet businesses using products such as verity
and oracle on internet application, before they had reasonable internet
licenses. Remember that licensing was per seat connection with oracle. So
if you used it to run a web application - how many users or seats did you
now have? This is the licensing to which I was referring. Maintenance
contracts are a necessary evil for our business. Probably similar to
extended warranties with cars. You can choose to renew or not. But I
suspect that a small business with 20 workstations isn't buying a
renewable support contract. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I want
to sell these support contracts for Linux, if I can.

How big is your business? Your deptment? Do you fall into the SME category?

here's another question, since you are an IT manager: Does your headcount
funding come from one pool and your software licensing, equipment and
maintenance contracts another? Or do you have a shared pool?



>
> W. Chris Shank said:
>> I'm sorry. I really hate to beat a dead horse, but I need to give this
>> one a few more whacks. This is a completely generic statement with no
>> basis in actual fact other than my personal experiences and
>> observations: People aren't getting laid because their budget was
>> consumed by software
>> licensing. People were getting laid off because thier businesses were
>> LOSING money.
>
> Who said they were laid off because of licensing costs? I sure didn't.
>
>> people - you need to cut the jobs. And software licensing is typically
>> a one time cost, so it's money already spent. Certainly some of the
>> internet related companies were striking license deals that were
>> renewed annually or based on sales or traffic or what not. But
>> licensing is a fixed cost and is usually already spent and it
>> typically comes from an entirely different fund that headcount.
>
> Just today I'm working on next year's budget. Software license renewals
> (needed for vendor support) for Symantec Norton Antivirus are gonna cost
> my organization $30 per user/license. There's $2300 there. I have the
> same situation with BackupExec maintenance. And OTG (imaging database
> program) aintenance. And Pick maintenance. And ...
>
> My point is that in a business, you may pay for the license once. (and
> MS is trying to change that, too :-). But you have to also pay for
> continual maintenance, as well. Sure, you could let it lapse. And then
> you run the risk of not being able to get support/updates when something
> goes wrong, etc.
>
> My experience is that renewable maintenance is not "some of the internet
> related companies"; it's most of the big software manufacturers.
>
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