Hi James,
    hmmm... I hear you and agree with you!

    And one thot comes to mind.... (and note that I am doing this right now with
a vendor!)

   I have a product that is not working at my site... the new version just
doesn't do what it should... I have been waiting for 5 months for a patch... so
when the invoice came in for the yearly support contract.... I told the vendor
... "No Patch, No Money"  I mean I am running a version of this software from
1989 'cause it works and the 1997 version doesn't ...  hmmm... and I have only
been working here since '92!!!

 If I don't get a fix I will not be paying the support contract this year...
instead I will make Interex very happy by using the support contract monies to
join Interex and get the CSL which has software that does the same thing as the
software that is not working at my site!

    After all... why pay for support when the software is not getting supported?


Art "Yep, this oughta start a thread :) hehehe :) " Bahrs
>>> James Trudeau <[log in to unmask]> 01/21/98 06:55am >>>
Howdy,

Bob Brown the other day had a couple observations on if not Cognos
directly certain 3rd party vendors in general leaving their customers
languishing in upgrade purgatory.

Alan Wilson comments on his upgrade to a 987.  Lemme throw in
my .02 centavos worth.

The cost of our upgrade from a 947RX to a 987RX was nothing
compared to the software upgrade costs.  Cognos alone was more
than double the cost of the hardware.  No new tape, no new features
no new anything.  Also I would mention in passing that although we
pay our annual maintenance fees our last enhancement/bug fix/
whatever was May of 1995.  The one prior to that was 1992 (or so).

We use Qedit, Suprtool, Adager and Vesoft and receive enhancements
and bug fixes annually.  After running DISC for a couple of years
we finally got a bug fix last December.  We got it because our
applications began to crash.  I now understand the difference between
proactive and reactive (like I didn't before).

The point of this tirade is "beware".  There are software vendors out
there that will hug you and kiss you and call you their own.  As long
as you keep paying chingos of $$$$ and don't bother them.

Sorry 'bout the bandwidth but I really get incensed at some of these
outfits.

jt

----------
From:   Alan Wilson
Sent:   Tuesday, January 20, 1998 5:02 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        987 Upgrade



   Lastly(and most expensive) is the license fees for software upgrades.
     Software upgrades will probably much more than hardware cost. Boy,
     I sure hope you don't use Cognos!

     If I can be of further help, email me of give me a call.

     Alan Wilson
     336-691-3588