<SNIP>
There was no way to justify spending $25,000 on the hardware/os upgrade only
to be hit with another $250,000 in various licensing upgrade fee's for
existing software when all you were trying to do was make room for a new
application. This type of pricing is what made single application
WinTel/Unix servers so appealing to many, as the act of adding a server to
run a new application did not cause your other application vendors to call
up demanding cash for the "extra value" you were supposedly receiving for
their software, and also led to shops postponing any 3000 upgrades, due to
normal growth, until the system slowed to a crawl.
<ENDSNIP>

I agree that this was a factor. I know it was always a bone of contention
for my company. The licensing fees of third party software were often
outrageous in our eyes. I remember paying very little for upgrades of the
hardware/OS and then paying huge fees to TPS vendors for tier upgrades. I
think TPS was often 2 or 3 times what the hardware/OS costs were and we were
buying big systems (996, 997, 989 with unlimited license). This is a very
good point you make here. Now I don't was to just say these companies were
charging too much. It seems like they were but I really don't know. Maybe
there customer base was so small that they had to charge that much to stay
in business? I suspect this was often not the case. I think many saw a niche
market where most customers had basically two options either stick with it
and pay the price or switch to another platform which they knew most
wouldn't do.

Josh

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