Re: Informix costs
John Tanis wrote: > I am curious what the average person in the USA pays for Informix support and > IDS 9. We started with 7.3 275 user license and a 7.3 150 user license for our > two IDS servers. We pay about $40,000 per year to our Informix VAR which we > originally assumed included free Informix updates. They charge us $200 per hour > for any support calls so we knew that the 40k did not cover support. > > We wanted to upgrade to IDS 9.4 and were told it would cost us $175 per user for > the upgrade. That is some serious money when you look at how many users we have > and we are already paying 40k per year (for what?). > > So my question is what does it cost to get support directly from IBM and what > does IDS 9.4 normally cost for new or uprades. You should talk with IBM directly and probably try to find what you're paying for... The price AFAIK can vary acording to the customer. Passport Advantage have different price levels... Regards.
"Fernando Nunes" <spam@domus.online.pt> wrote in message news:4356774d$0$29400$a729d347@news.telepac.pt... > John Tanis wrote: >> I am curious what the average person in the USA pays for Informix support >> and >> IDS 9. We started with 7.3 275 user license and a 7.3 150 user license >> for our >> two IDS servers. We pay about $40,000 per year to our Informix VAR which >> we >> originally assumed included free Informix updates. They charge us $200 >> per hour >> for any support calls so we knew that the 40k did not cover support. > You should talk with IBM directly and probably try to find what you're > paying for... > > The price AFAIK can vary acording to the customer. Passport Advantage > have different price levels... It depends upon the type of agreement John has. It may be an OEM support contract, where the support contract is held directly by the ISV/VAR. The ISV is expected to provide front-line Informix support, and the back-up support may not be provided by IBM either (in the UK it is provided by a distributor, OpenPSL, who offer only Mon-Fri 9-5 cover). In the OEM case IBM consider that the support arrangement is not their concern and will not intervene, no matter how unfair that might seem to the customer and regardless of the damage it may do to the customer's perception of IBM. A Passport Advantage (PA) agreement is a support contract between the end user and IBM, which may or may not have been sold through a reseller. IBM takes this type of agreement very seriously and provides 24x7 cover under it. Despite teething problems in transition of Informix products into PA, and the general crapness of support for PA when things go wrong, as they sometimes do, PA generally offers the end user a superior 24x7 service by comparison with that of the old Informix Software company, since the 24x7 cover is inclusive and, as Fernando observed, a formal discount structure applies for bigger spenders.