karl@grebyn.COM (Karl A. Nyberg) (04/21/88)
I just got the update for my annual software self-maintenance for Ultrix,
and it went from $105 to $200/month. Remeber, that's SELF-MAINTENANCE!
That's "we send you the tapes, and you put them in". This is for the
microVAX II hardware. Considering how many of them have been sold (or
rumored to have been sold), I would think there are a number of other people
who are also incensed by this. I have called DEC Corporate Customer Service
(1-800-332-4636), and registered a complaint as to how outrageous I think
this is. I can understand some increased costs, inflation, and all that,
but ALMOST 100%? (Last year it went from $9X to $105.)
Maybe it's an attempt to get the revenues and earnings back up to where the
security analysts think they should be... :-)
-- Karl --
Karl A. Nyberg karl@grebyn.com, nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu
Grebyn Corporation karl%grebyn.com@umd5.umd.edu
P. O. Box 1144 {decuac,umd5}!grebyn!karl
Vienna, VA 22180-1144 703-281-2194 news@bingvaxu.UUCP (04/27/88)
In article <31097@felix.UUCP> karl@grebyn.COM (Karl A. Nyberg) writes: > >I just got the update for my annual software self-maintenance for Ultrix, >and it went from $105 to $200/month. Remeber, that's SELF-MAINTENANCE! It is especially outrageous when one compares it to the cost of maintaining a Sun. We are strongly considering dropping maintenance altogether and budgeting for a new license every year. At $200 per month, the new license and tape kit isconsiderably cheaper. If the service provided were a bit better... When I installed 2.0, I discovered that we had a bad tape (this was AFTER my system disk was destroyed, of course). After several hours, I had 1.2 back up, and it only took Digital 12, yes 12!!!!! days to get me a replacement tape. Apparently touring large ships at DecWorld was more important than keeping a customer happy. Of course, I am happy that I have now been informed that Digital now regards Ultrix as an equal partner with VMS. In fact, my local service engineer is going to go to an Ultrix school in a few weeks. Maybe when he gets back he'll know how to log onto my machine. What I don't understand, is why Ken Olsen hasn't been informed of this new corporate policy. (Or if he has, why he insists on referring to Unix as snake oil.) Fred Sullivan Department of Mathematical Sciences State University of New York at Binghamton Binghamton, New York 13903 Email: sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu