RE: [IMail Forum] IMail/ICS Update

[Joshua Levitsky]

---

From: "Bill Foresman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 10:55 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IMail/ICS Update

I have to agree.

Ipswitch's previous decision has show us that there are better solutions
available for our needs for less money. This isn't a money thing because I'm
certainly willing to pay more for better. The problem for ipswitch is that
better isn't necessarily more expensive.

P.S. - ditch the person responsible for this move because it's going to cost
more than he or she is worth.

Bill Foresman
Matrosity Hosting
www.matrosityhosting.com
Office: (850) 656-2644



-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 10:32 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] IMail/ICS Update


I won't be renewing my service agreement, and I won't be purchasing any
more copies of IMail nor any other product from Ipswitch. Here's why:

1) Despite the stated recognition of a mistake, it is still clear that
full recognition of that mistake escapes the executives of this
company. An increase in price of the service agreement in order to
cover the expense of providing support which was previously stated as
being too costly is just simply a way for Ipswitch to pass on their poor
management to their customers instead of taking on internal reform to
make the company more efficient. There is for instance no reason why a
human needs to respond to a request to download an upgrade from the
Web. There has also been a trend of breaking things as you fix them,
and then responding very slowly with patches. In the last 6 months,
there have only been 3 minor version releases, and over 2 months since
the last release which broke obvious parts of Web mail and
interpretability with Mail-to-Fax.

2) There is a total lack of recognition of what is going on in the rest
of the industry for simple mail server products. The general trend is
for products to become less expensive and offer more, instead IMail is
becoming more expensive and falling behind. Also, companies have been
offering a separation of support agreements and upgrade protection in
order to not put the burden of support costs on those that don't need
it. For the cost of the old service agreement price on the Unlimited
version of IMail, I could have purchased any number of more functional
mail servers, but now that service agreement has increased by over 40%.

3) Any company that is so short-sighted as to initially overlook the
needs of their primary customers, and who has not fired those
responsible for such actions, cannot be trusted. Ipswitch broke their
agreement with me to provide upgrades, which in itself brought
ill-advised liability upon the software company that I depend on. Now
that some form of resolution has been offered, the cost increase of over
40% when paired with nothing more than a simple recognition of a
mistake, but no other obvious action. In other words, the same people
are still calling the shots so far as I know, the resolution was merely
a matter of asking me which way I wanted to bend over, and there is
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING offered that gives me an ounce of confidence that
this will not happen again.

My bottom line is that I don't let companies (people) profit from my
business when they try to take advantage of me and I have a choice. The
only way that I would have stayed was if there was a reorganization at
the upper levels of management where corrective action was taken to
replace the people that are ruining Ipswitch's business. So far as I
can tell, that has not happened.

Matt




Roger C. Greene wrote:

>Dear IMail Customers,
>
>The messaging market has changed since we introduced IMail almost 10
>years ago. Back then, SMTP and POP3 were most of what was needed in a
>product. Today, there is increasing demand for more comprehensive
>collaboration solutions and the stand-alone messaging market is
>shrinking. That is why we introduced Ipswitch Collaboration Suite as
>our messaging solution for the future.
>
>In introducing ICS, though, we did not fully assess the impact on you,
>our customers. Many of you have written or called to tell us about
>that impact. We have listened to what you had to say and decided on
>the following actions:
>
>1. IMail Server customers may continue to purchase Service Agreements
>without upgrading to ICS. Since it is at the core of ICS, you can be
>assured that we will continue to enhance and support IMail Server. As
>of December 1, Service Agreement prices will increase to $695 (from
>$495) for IMail Professional and to $375 (from $245) for IMail Small
Business.
>
>Note that anti-virus subscriptions will only be sold as part of ICS.
>For those who have AV, we believe the ICS value proposition is
>compelling.
>
>As always, we strongly encourage all IMail users to keep current with
>new IMail releases. We do not believe that per-support-incident
>charges are in the best interests of the majority of our users, and
>will not adopt them at this time (but will continue to listen to your
>feedback).
>
>2. Ipswitch Instant Messaging customers may also continue to purchase
>Service Agreements. As of December 1, the Service Agreement price will
>increase to $195 (from $99).
>
>3. The December 31 deadline for cross-grade pricing to ICS has been
>eliminated, so you have more time to plan. You may now make the move
>to ICS on your own schedule.
>
>I am sure that many of you will have questions about your particular
>circumstances, and I encourage you to talk to your Ipswitch or reseller
>salesperson about the best path forward for you. I want to especially
>thank those of you who took the time to call us and explain your
>situations in detail. We are pleased that we ended up opening a more
>direct channel of communications with all of you who wrote or called.
>Last week Bill Pollack sent an e-mail with management names and phone
>numbers; please always feel free to call us.
>
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>Roger Greene
>President
>
>
>
>To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html
>List Archive:
>http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/
>Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
>
>


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