Sunset Clauses in Software

DaveAtFraud writes: "Ed Foster over at InfoWorld has an interesting column on "sunset" clauses in commercial software. I don't have a problem with people who write, say, anti-virus software charging for a "subscription" to their virus signature update service. I am paying for something of value to me and it costs them something to maintain this data. I do have a problem with the same people extracting a little extra "squeeze" every couple of years and forcing me to learn yet another user interface just because they have decided that the old one looks little dated. Somehow, I don't buy (no pun intended) that their engine for scanning a byte stream has changed again."

Comments

Yup.

[digitalunity]

I can't blame them. It takes effort to continually support old versions. This affects the bottom line. Companies(especially public ones) are all about making money. When it gets to a point where you are supporting people using old software and you are losing money, that's when you pull the cord. It's like Microsoft ending support for Win95. Can you blame them? It wasn't even that great when it first came out, 6 years ago. If I was them, I wouldn't have given people quite so long.

Re:Yup.

[pubjames]

I can't blame them. It takes effort to continually support old versions. This affects the bottom line. Companies(especially public ones) are all about making money.

Why is it that so many people seem to believe that the only criteria that applies to anything is money? As if companies are complete independent of people, a force all unto themselves.

Remember that the basic dictionary definition of company is "a group of people". If a group of people want to screw you over because they can and it's profitable, they can choose to do that. Just because the group of people is acting as a "company" does not resolve them of moral and ethical responsibilities.

Good or Bad thing?

[grid geek]

Is this trend to rent software actually a bad thing for companies? I work mostly in research/academia so a lot of our software is done in house and we dont have this problem (and the remainder's Linux etc) but I'd assume that both sides in business would benefit - the seller gets a constant revenue stream, no major bumps like the currently get with new releases (at least after Bug Fix 1 gets released *grin*) and the purchaser gets to see a fixed cost each quater rather than one off costs.

Ok, for the individual its not a good thing and don't get me started on the privacy issues of product activation but for a lot of things a continual rental model would be better and may stop quite the same level of boom & bust in the industry.

Well thats my $0.02 worth. Any opions from our corporate bretheran?

Re:What to do with the obsolete versions?

[Boiling_point_]

Because, unless you've packed so much good stuff into your new version, people will use your old one and decide not to ever buy your current one.

It's sad but true.

There's no magic rule for this, though. I happily use an FTP client that's several years old. I also play C64 emulated games. I'm not going to get a new FTP client any time soon, but I still got Return 2 C Wolf because C64 games don't scratch the same itch (multiplayer eyecandy immersion).

Re:What to do with the obsolete versions?

[Anonymous Coward]

ahem, we still use SQL6.5 corperate wide and told microsoft to bugger off on an upgrade. 7.0 and 2000 offer NOTHING to us.

when told it was unsupported, we made the salesman mad with the obligratory , "cince when has microsoft offered any useable support? we have had to support all microsoft products In house with people and firms that are not a part of the microsoft empire. Microsoft doesnt offer support."

with that I'm sure he marked us as trouble makers and scheduled an audit.... and my boss will not let them in without a warrant from a judge :-)

Re:A really disturbing trend.

[kerrbear]

Diablo II automatically updated software when you logged onto Battle.net....People who bought something 4 years ago with a certain promise of functionality deserve to be able to keep that functionality

Hmmm. But if you buy a piece of software that depends on the internet, how long should a company support it? Let's say interest for battle.net fell off dramatically in four years, so that only a few hundred people were playing it. Should the company continue to support the service? Should they support it after twenty years? I'm not trying to nix your point, which is valid, it just got me thinking.

Offsetting costs vs. Gouging customers

[mystery_bowler]

This is just my opinion as a software developer.

I have never, nor will I willingly place a time bomb in software I create that forces a customer to buy another version of said software needlessly.

Having said that though, there is one approach along these lines that I don't necessarily disagree with. When the customer buys the product, part of what they, the customer, is expecting is support. Employing support people (What, you don't expect me to do this myself do you? I'm a programmer. ;) ) costs money, but hopefully the sale of the product makes up for that. The product will, most likely, change (hopefully for the better) over time but free support for the product should last no less than 6 months. 6 months should give a customer plenty of time to get familiar with the installation and use of the software.

After the predesignated length of time - which, by the way, the customer should be made aware of from the start - support should cost money. Keeping your tech support knowledge base going, keeping knowledgeable, experienced people on your tech support staff and supporting older versions of your software all cost money. The more versions of your software you support, the more it will wind up costing you. Since these old versions don't reflect new sales, the costs have to be made up with charging for support.

Of course, you could go to another extreme and offer either free or significantly reduced-cost upgrades for life for your customers. That's always nice.

Because so many people understand the real world

[Earl Shannon]

Think of a "group of people" brought together for one purpose. If that purpose is business, then making a profit is what they are all about. In the United States business schools probably teach as much ethics as they do in the computer science program I graduated from ( A 1 Semester hour course, as compared to 3 for normal classes ). Businesses do not exist to promote good ethics. They exist to make money. Please don't misunderstand me. Making money is not inherently bad ( hm. Or is it? ). But our society places great emphasis on it. Bill Gates is an admired man in business circles. There are those of us in the Information Technolody industry who may loathe him and his company, but if you speak with people outside the industry you find admiration more than anything else. He made it! All that said, what these companies are doing is trying to clean up their bottom line. Not providing support for products that they no longer make isn't inherently wrong. But I must admit that they tend to expire they products rather frequently. I tend to believe that they are doing this not so much because they are minimizing support costs, but are trying to maximize sales of new products. Hence they are "screwing people over".

Check that Expiration Date

[ZZZaphod]

From Article:

"This guy was very insistent that if we did not buy renewals we would be sued [because] our current licenses would be expiring after two years,"

This example isn't a case of getting charged for tech support, or a company ending its support. Its a having software "expire" right from under you. And a long as software is "licensed" the customer is at the mercy of the vendor and that license. There was a similar attempted 'expiration' when a certain freeware video conferencing program was finally bought out by a company that had been licensing the technology. Problem is not long before this the buyout, the freewarwe guys released an upgraded program that was on par in key ways with the what the new company was planning to release.
Heres the rub. The new company tried to declare the freeware software that had already been released, "expired". They then began to try to pressure folks to delete, and pull from their websites software that was packaged with a freeware license.

Who know's whats lurking down in the bottom of those EULA's - I figure the big boys have inserted a legal ace or two in there EULA's for just such an thing, "This license may be terminated when we say so, and you must quit using it and burn your hard drive" and are just figuring out to keep Joe Customer from blowing chunks when they try to push it down his throat.

Our discontinued software was free (as in beer)

[kriegsman]

I led a small, innovative Internet software company for six years -- long enough for several of our older products to be superceded by newer, different, or competing ones, and to ultimately be retired.

In most cases, when we finally discontinued all support for a product, especially a potentially mission-critical server product, we made a fully-functional perpetually-licensed version of the software available for free to anyone who wanted it, and who acknowledged that there was no warranty or support.

Our logic was simple: once there was no more money for us to make with a product, if people found it useful (in its completely unsupported state), then at least we were doing something good for our customer community, and hopefully generating a little goodwill.

I think for some kinds of software, making "retired" products available (unsupported) for free has the potential to be good for everyone involved.

-Mark Kriegsman

Norton Antivirus - real case scenario

[Vspirit]

my mother has an IBM laptop with norton antivirus preinstalled. Thats good. You've paid for the software once. That was one of the motivators for her to buy the laptop. All she now need to do is to upgrade her access to the virus definition updates. Thats good. Now just recently her last subscription ran out and she wanted to renew this. She couldn't. There were nolonger an option to update order a new subscription to that version of Norton Antivirus. She have to upgrade the whole software package though all she need is the antivirus definition subscription to be updated. Something they did not say wasn't possible in the marketing. Now she can't and is running without antivirus.

She has lost her trust in the Antivirus company who's most important issue is trust in their service.

Similar cases are seen with small business clients of mine who were promised the same from the marketing of Norton.

They have been left out in the open as well.

Fact is that eg. the marketing of Norton antivirus have not lived up to its promises = false marketing in my book, and in law in Europe/Denmark it means a crime.

So I'm now wondering if we will see class action suits in America sooner or later knowing this is going on.

And just to finish it off.. Where are the companies strategy? it definately do not seem to be in quality when quality is defined by:

what is delivered / what is expected = 1
if the result is not 1, quality is questionable.