Re: RUMORS... true or false, you decide..

> > 1. For major upgrades, the client will have to pay 25% of the > > list price of the software. > > I just spoke to my sales representative, and she confirms that this > policy is under consideration. When this thread hit the list in late January, I talked with a local VAR, and with Informix national and regional sales people. Below is what I learned at the time. My notes may be incomplete, so if there are errors, they're probably mine. Also, things may have changed since then. Based on what I was told, it appears that the policy is not under consideration, but that it is already in place effective January 1, 1992, for all new (5.0 and higher) products. Releases will have three-part numbers, A.B.C (plus perhaps patch-levels). The three parts will correspond to Major, Enhancement and Maintenance releases, respectively, reading the number left-to-right. You have to be under maintenance support to get any special upgrade pricing. The current cost for maintenance is 18% of the list price of your product(s) per year. Informix will assign each Major and Enhancement release an upgrade fee based on their perception of the enhancements or new features in the release. This fee will always be at least $299 per license. Maintenance releases will be free to customers under maintenance contracts. The upgrade fee assigned to the 5.0 servers and connectivity products worldwide is 25% of list price. As a one-time exception, North American customers under maintenance can upgrade from 4.x to 5.0 for free if the 4.x product was purchased before February 1, 1992. While the conversations that I had indicated that the policy was set, I have yet to personally see a general announcement. Perhaps it is still subject to change. If so, it would be much easier for Informix to modify it before it is publicly announced. I also heard that this type of upgrade pricing has been in affect for European (and perhaps other) customers since 4.0. If that's correct, perhaps some of those folks on the list might care to comment. Since we haven't had a chance to discuss this issue here at our site, I'll leave my editorializing for another post. If you know any of the above to be incorrect, please let me know. Thanks, Walt. -- Walt Hultgren Internet: walt@rmy.emory.edu (IP 128.140.8.1) Emory University UUCP: {...,gatech,rutgers,uunet}!emory!rmy!walt 954 Gatewood Road, NE BITNET: walt@EMORY Atlanta, GA 30329 USA Voice: +1 404 727 0648