User Licensing (concurrent to named)

[George Regateiro]

I was looking for some feedback as to what the experience has been or if this is just so new that there has not been any experience with it. We are looking into Cognos 8 Bi and were just told that in order to use the capabilities with TM1 that we would have to convert TM1 to the IBM named user seats (please note the IBM Named and not just Named Seats). We are currently on concurrent seats and figured that we would have to do this at some point, but where we are getting very put off is that Cognos/IBM is wanting to charge us a fee to do so.

From what we were told the structure is

If you own

Applix TM1 Concurrent seats - $300 per seat conversion fee

Applix TM1 Named Seats (they started selling these before the Cognos buyout) - $125 per seat conversion fee

So for my company the cost for being able to consider their new functionality with Cognos 8 Bi would be that cost a very nice Lexus, just to get the product I already own and license to where they will let me purchase extra software and licenses to interface with it.

Has there been any experience with this yet?

And to the IBM masters yes I know that I am probably blacklisting myself from all further aide and communication by posting this.

[John Hobson]

George

Not sure if I get that?

So if you have a 10 concurrent user licence they want to charge you $300 a seat to convert it to a less flexible named user seat?

That makes no sense at all!

J

[George Regateiro]

Unfortunately from how it was explained to us yesterday you did understand the post.

They have changed their licensing model and want to charge me for the privelege of them changing their mind. I will recieve aboslutely no benefit from it but they are trying to have me pay for the privelege of converting to named seats.

And then I would be able to purchase their BI suite to interface with TM1, but that would be a an additional cost seperate from the conversion charge.

[jim wood]

Sounds like IBM thought building a printing press would cost too much. Instead of printing their own money they are just getting everybody else to donate to them for nothing instead!!!

[John Hobson]

But named users are less beneficial to you that concurrent users !!!

That's just lunacy

I wonder which marketing MBA thought up that particular way of cosying up to existing clients in these troubled times?

[mattgoff]

Depending on the size of your existing and/or proposed contract I expect you should be able to negotiate that fee down to zero. I'm pretty sure they're not going to let a few $k stand in the way of selling you a whole new product suite.

The terms they offered us to switch to named user were very, very unfavorable (1 concurrent = 2 named). Since we haven't needed to buy any new licenses from them since the switchover we're still grandfathered, but if push came to shove (or if we needed to buy more licenses), we would drop TM1 before we'd agree to those terms. I told our sales rep as much.

Matt

P.S. I wish people would stop blaming stuff like this on MBAs. It's the easy us vs. them argument, but most MBAs are smart enough to know this would anger and alienate customers-- this is most likely the result of an engineer-made-marketeer who thinks his (or her) biz model spreadsheet will work in the real world.

[George Regateiro]

P.S. I wish people would stop blaming stuff like this on MBAs. It's the easy us vs. them argument, but most MBAs are smart enough to know this would anger and alienate customers-- this is most likely the result of an engineer-made-marketeer who thinks his (or her) biz model spreadsheet will work in the real world.

As a soon to be MBA (one more week) I appreciate the defense this is clearly someone who has not actually worked with a customer or been on the customer side of one of these arrangements. An MBA (or anyone for that matter) should be able to see how ridiculous this is, there is nothing more then blind greed at work here not a business school education.


Though I realize that we would be able to negotiate this down to nothing it just irratates to no end that I have to waste my time with this when the focus should be on the software. As a customer like many others around here I am tired of hearing that the fix for the bugs that are affecting me will be in a nebulous upcoming release, but they can take the time to have someone thinking up the this crap.

I am going to have to fight it and unfortunately will be making the decision where certain things like TM1 fall in our businesses objective. There are great things that can be done with the software but not if it is going to be a continual bilking of money beyond my maintenance. I am going through it right now and unfortunately if they continue down this path many others around here are going to waste their time with a moronic policy.

[John Hobson]

I wish people would stop blaming stuff like this on MBAs.

Welll I clearly hit a nerve there

I didn't mean to suggest that all MBAs are in ivory towers, and apologise if you or anyone else took it that way

(and far be it from me to criticise the history of the marketing of this product. Far, far be it from me to do anything like that. At all. Ever)

But if the Cognos / IBM marketing MBAs are not paying attention to this stuff they might as well be on the beach, as any other good work they might be doing is being totally destroyed by whoever dreamed this rubbish up.

[Steve Vincent]

We converted to a named license set up last year, but that was before the Cognos acquisition went thru and unfortunately i cannot discuss its content. Its not as restrictive as you might think tho, we use Windows security groups to allow people access to the software and the accounts in that group are our "named licensees". Its not like we have to send a list of users to Cognos everytime someone needs access, we just have to be able to supply said list on request to prove we are within our terms.

[stephen waters]

But if the Cognos / IBM marketing MBAs are not paying attention to this

I dont want to go into details but we have had several customers who have moved to named user, often combined with upgrading to 64 bit, and it has actually prove beneficial to them. It really depends on the concurrency ratio of your current RW ports. A large population of occassional, non-synchronous users will do well with concurrent ports; budgeting or financial reporting type apps where everyone wants to access the system at the same time can do well out of a move to named user.

And dont put blame for the move on Cognos. Applix were moving to named user at leat 6 months before the Cognos takeover and, in fact, the Cognos conversion ratios are better than the Applix ones!

[John Hobson]

Stephen

I am not really in the swim with IBCoglix any longer as regards this sort of thing, and I respect your wish to avoid detail, so please feel free to decline to answer, but how on earth can a switch from a concurrent user port to a named user port on a one for one basis at a cost of $300 a time be good for any customer.

One can only assume that they are prepared to take a rather different stance if pushed, because there is no logic in that other scenario!

I think Jim maybe got it right with his printing press analogy!

[Steve Vincent]

<cough>who said it was one to one?</cough>

[John Hobson]

<cough>who said it was one to one?</cough>

Well , Steve, when I asked George:

So if you have a 10 concurrent user licence they want to charge you $300 a seat to convert it to a less flexible named user seat?

he did reply that I had understood correctly, so the answer to your question would seem to be "George"

It would appear from what others have said that this must have been some sort of aberration on the part of the salesman concerned.

[Steve Vincent]

You see i read that a different way. George says "Applix TM1 Concurrent seats - $300 per seat conversion fee" but doesn't say what that ratio is. I read it as "for every concurrent seat we already own, it'll cost us $300 to convert that to a number of named seats". It might be a 1C to 1N seat ratio (in which case i'd start to turn the thumb screws on your reseller) but it could be 1C to 100N. I'd suggest to George that he asks that specific question to confirm what the offer really is.

No one at Cognos is dumb enough to think that a concurrent to named seat conversion of 1:1 is a viable option, even if it was free it'd be a big step backwards let alone having to pay for it.

[jim wood]

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Greed can cloud common sense especially when we are in a world economy on the brink of recession.

[Steve Vincent]

Cue the thumb screws - greed works both ways. i want as much as possible for as little cash vs i want as much cash for selling as little as possible. There is always a middle ground, i'm just suggesting that a 1:1 ratio is far too generous to the vendor in this case