So I was reading through the support policy for a customer looking at what type of support they needed and how long they should keep it, and I came across this:
Your plan price is based on the retail cost of the software. If a lapse occurs, you will be charged a reinstatement fee (which is calculated at a daily rate)
So what I'm getting here is that if a lapse occurs, there will be some type of back-payment upon reinstatement based on the time the length of time the license is lapsed. However, I can't seem to find it specified anywhere what the "daily rate" actually is. Aside from any upgrade fees, which I understand, is the fee just the exact price that would have been paid for the missed days? Is it some greater amount? Is there a length of time after which no additional fee is assessed? For example, if I drop support for 4 years and then pick it back up again, will I be charged for just 1 year, or all 4 years, or perhaps the 4 years at a higher rate (I've seen some companies charge 150-200% for lapsed time)? Has anyone had experience with this, or can clarify how this fee is calculated?
I asked a similar question to an account rep last week, and this is the response I got and which doesn't feel like any sort of secret. IA feel free to delete if this isn't public:
Our support starts from date of purchase. Same goes for our 90-day post sales support. Once PO is received and an invoice is issued is when that support kicks in.
Just did this hopefully I'll be able to get an answer.
I think I was a bit unclear about what's going on. There's an existing BasicCare support plan, and they are thinking about what the consequences would be of letting it lapse, potentially for several years. If the support plan lapses for a long time, and they then ever want to reinstate it later, aside from the upgrade cost and any potential issues that come with upgrading, would they then have to backpay the cost for the support plan for the entire lapsed period?
Understood. The situation here is that there's a good chance they end up not upgrading for more than 4 years, so we're trying to figure out what the additional fee would be.
Is the customer used to Rockwell's upgrade policy where you can pick up support many years later and all you have to pay is 1 year of support at the regular rate and you can automatically upgrade to the latest version? I don't agree with the policy, as companies take advantage of it all the time, but it is what it is.
To me, the cost of the support plan is minimal in the grand scheme of things, and compared to some of the other software packages out there.
Just got confirmation from sales that this is correct. Thanks!
The pro-rated fee has a 25% markup on the back-payment, but is only for installs that don't require an upgrade.
No, they just aren't planning to upgrade or make many changes to their system in the foreseeable future, and don't want to keep paying for something they don't intend on making use of. Because of that, they're trying to figure out to what degree they need to consider the possibility of making changes in the distant future.
Of course, the version's EOL is in about 5 years anyways so I suppose there's not much point in considering anything more distant than that as far as support is concerned...
You are right that it's really very minimal cost compared to most other software packages.
Just bear in mind that other factors within your ecosystem can have their effects.
e.g., especially if you are on WinDoze, updates can break Ignition which therefore may require support. With NO support, you're at the back of the queue.
CrowdStrike wasn't that long ago, not that it would be up to IA to fix this. My point is, that they ARE getting something with BasicCare, the fact they don't NEED it is a testament to IA's software.
8.3 is coming out in just a few months and with what they've previewed will be worth the upgrade for at least keeping BasicCare for another year to get the 8.3 version. Personally, I recommend keeping at minimum BasicCare on all licenses, and have some clients that don't get it at all, and others who have a fleet of Edge devices plus a standard instance in the cloud and have them all under support.
