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."

Re:It's a question of ethics...

[grid geek]

On the other hand the UK gets around this by declaring that even if the consumer agrees to the EULA initially to install the software they still have all their legal rights for fair use, reliability etc. For example I could agree to the EULA of a CD-RW drive/software saying I will not copy music CD's, however UK legislation allows me to make a backup copy of any software or media which is in a format which could be damaged or destroyed so long as it is for my use only. Despite agreeing to the EULA I couldn't be prosecuted for piracy unless I distributed it.

So all we need is well worded legislation which protects the consumer at the cost of big business ... good luck with Congress.

The days old...

[dreamquick]

As much as it pains me to point this out:

The days of buying a product for a fixed fee with which includes lifetime support and upgrades are over.

Even as cynical as I am it's obvious that particular business model wont work, even as much as I like it.

The purchase model is continually trying to be killed off and replaced with the subscription based model as this allows for much more consistent balance sheets - take the two cases:

you have X users each paying Y every year

you have X users who paid Y for our product and if they like it they might pay Z in the future, but only if they choose to upgrade.

Which one do you think sounds more palatable to the board - one off payments or regular payments?

Counter-arguements such as the model for products like WinZip spring to mind - they still provide a cheap registration with lifetime support and upgrades but I'd imagine their mission is to get at least some of that massive userbase to register.

Realistically I'd be happy to have a product that I buy then pay to upgrade every few years (cough cough windows) but i start to resent that upgrade cost when it is almost identical to the cost of buying a new copy (cough cough windows).

Also you have to bear in mind that whenever a new windows version comes along the UI changes and so there is a mad clamour to change your programs to make them feel like they too are part of this new UI. Products that look ugly don't sell well to the masses so it pays to keep your software looking neat, tidy and user-friendly.

If you will try to sell me a product and then a year or two along the line try to offer me a cheap upgrade (e.g. Paint Shop Pro) then fine, I'll buy if you've added new features - however if you haven't and it's the same product in a new bundle with a .01 added to the version number, I'm sure your competition has been working on better features in the meantime {evil grin}.

What I really resent is this latest trend of having to buy a physical product AS WELL AS pay a subscription fee (most PVR's) - either choose one method or the other if you want me as a customer, as both simply leaves me to look at your competition.

This is great!

[Lumpy]

I hope all closed source companies do this, hell I hope thay make it a 6 month cycle.

things like this will make OSS more and more attractive to the users out there.

I just love it when you see an entire industry slitting their own throats and bleeding to death slowly.

OS Upgrade = Appl upgrades, back on the treadmill

[zoward]

I recently upgraded to Windows XP, hoping to get a stability boost from the NT engine in XP. I often work from home, and the multitasking required by my work had Win98 bluescreen as often as once an hour. I dreaded the upgrade because of what I knew was going to happen: I am now in the process of reloading my favorite applications one by one to see which ones are going to work and which ones are going to require upgrade in order to run under WinXP.

I couldn't even start the intall program for Easy CD Creator 4 before Windows XP itself told me that my version was out of date and I'd need to upgrade. Even the shrink-wrapped copies of ECDC at BestBuy touted a download you could get to make it XP-compliant (ie, it doesn't even work out of the box).

Music Match Jukebox 4 loads, but hangs my system the minute I try to rip am MP3. I can download the latest version, but in order for it to rip at 160K I have to pay for an upgrade.

I don't even feel the need to get the latest versions of these programs; they're jam-packed with extraneous features I won't use. I need to upgrade for the sole reason that I upgraded my OS.
All other apps combined, I'm running about 50/50 - half of my stable of frequently-used programs run under XP; half don't.

Granted, I could create a system partition for my old copy of Win98SE, load the program there, and keep going. I could cobble together a script of command-line utilities to do some of the same things under Linux (or maybe find a decent screen-driven app, but most are lacking in completeness and/or integration). Or I can knuckle under and ante up to maintain status quo.

*Sigh.* If I ever needed a kick in the pants to migrate more of my day-to-day functionality to my Linux partition, it arrived on my doorstep yesterday.

And when the company screws up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as ac for a reason.

The company I work for follows the support-subscription-and-charge-a-premium-to- upgrade-to-the-new-version business model . Since it was in the company's interest to increase revenue, they came out with a new whiz bang gui version of an old character based tool. The customer base ooed and aahed over the pretty screens and didn't realize they were being forced marched off of an ugly, functional and stable platform onto a pretty and unstable platform. Never mind that the new tool didn't support all the requisite customer functions - it was Pretty.

Pretty was worthless. During the last major migration, Pretty went down in flames. Pretty has been killed and now the company is saying "But wait! We've got Beautiful over here! Use that instead!"

During all of this, the customers have had two choices - stay with an old tool that works and the company has announced is dead or migrate. Since the company is about maximizing profits, the company didn't ever consider that it was in the customer's best interest to just incrementally revise the old stalwart tool.

As a result, our customers are pissed and our competitors are having a field day. However, even if the customers migrate to our competitors, they're not fundamentally better off. Our competitors use the same business model. Company knows that and the customer knows that.

Given what's happened over the past year, if I were the customer, I'd insist that the source be opened up. If the company says no, then migrate to a vendor that says yes. That way, if the old tool does 95% of what I want, I can pay someone to add the other 5%.

My guess is it'll be twenty years before the customers start reading /. and become sophisticated enough to understand that.

Re:Gas pumps

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I am guessing that they use unleaded with.

They either put a different block in under the hood, or there's other things, too [stp.com].

Re:Because so many people understand the real worl

[pubjames]

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.

This is so sad. "Hey, so we do bad things, we have no choice, we're a business!"

You do have a choice. Employees have a choice. Shareholders have a choice. Company managers have a choice.

I am Managing Director (that's CEO to you) of an IT company. A lot of my clients are reasonably ignorant about IT. It would be fairly easy for me to lie to them and sell them products and services that they don't really need, or deliberately lock them into solutions that it will be difficult for them to get out of again. It would probably make my company more profitable, and I know of companies that do it. But you know what? I don't do it. Why? Because it's wrong. When I deal with my clients, I am dealing with people. I don't think to myself "Hey, I can fuck these ignorant guys over and make lots of money." To me, and I would hope to most people, my personal values are more important than getting rich.

I imagine that Bill Gates rocks himself to sleep at night thinking "I've got all those suckers locked in and now I can raise prices and they can do nothing about it! What a bunch of losers! I'm the king of the world!" I know people like Bill Gates are highly respected in America, but they aren't so much in my corner of the world - they're seen as greedy, selfish ego-maniacs.