Re: [IMail Forum] Cross-grade concerns addressed (NEW SVC AGREEMENT PRICES)

[Scott Fisher]

From a 175 employee business prospective: these things about the ICS switch bother me:   1.  I work on a fiscal budget of July to June. I've had no advance warning of the changes, and have no way to budget for the upgrade prices even if I did want it. My price going from $495 to $2495 ... 5x the price is a big jump. And frankly you aren't giving me much ammunition to go sell the out-of-budget price hikes to my boss. Add to the fact, I bought my service agreement in late August and there is going to be no major upgrade for this service agreement. I haven't called for support and I probably won't. So I'll consider the service agreement money wasted.   2.  I can understand why you aren't making money on the Service Agreements... I paid slightly over $300 for mine through a reseller. Take his profit out and you are getting what $250-$275 for any Service Agreements sold through resellers. I really didn't have a problem with the $495, but I could easily find a much cheaper price. Perhaps if you stopped selling the Service Agreements through resellers, service agreements could be a revenue stream.   3.  Imail has always been offered on an a la carte basis. You buy the Imail system, and you could add the anti-virus option, the fax option, the better webmail option. I think this sales method was appreciated. Now to roll it all into one bundle, and make many people pay for items they don't want is pretty unfair. For me the Declude Anti-Virus and Declude Junkmail add-ons were one of the major reasons I choose Imail. So 2 of your 5 bullet points (spam protection and virus protection) for ICS, I wouldn't want and would personally consider to be a downgrade to my protection level if I was using them. The fact alone that I would be forced to pay for products I wouldn't use is mighty distasteful. If the product and price was right, I would consider a collaboration add-on, although I like many others were led to believe that this would be part of the next Imail upgrade. I haven't seen a lot of clamoring for the instant messaging option either. I don't have any interest in it at this point.   4.  If the support is becoming a financial burden, separate the service agreement into two parts. One part the upgrade assurance would allow continued access to minor upgrade and next releases. Add a Support agreement option for 8x5 and possibly a more expensive 24x7 option. Or better yet, paid support over the phone. But if I'm paying for support it better be good and by this I mean not somebody in an Indian Call Center reading off a script. Again, I've never called support, so I can't comment on your phone support. I have used e-mail support once and I got the answer I needed pretty quickly. I'd consider the $495 to be a fair price for the upgrade assurance option bought solely through Ipswitch (remember point 2 and the real costs of the service agreement). Many of us regularly pay items like this.   I like Imail and want Ipswitch to stay around and get better. I wish questions like "what would be a fair price for such an agreement?" would have been thought of and asked before the firestorm.