Hi Scott:
1. Licensing - Correct me if I'm wrong but no end user software license is transferable under NA T&C's. Transferable licenses you discussed are/were associated with operating lease returns under which NA granted the lessor the right to retain and transfer the license once after the equipment was returned or bought by the lessee. The lease companies negotiated this to protect the residual values otherwise it had a scrap or spare parts value. I would agree that everything can be negotiated, but no enduser should ever assume their software licenses are transferable. You can negotiate a price, but NA will never give away the crown jewels. Remember the "Hobbyist License discussion" that quietly went away.. 2. Keeping equipment under maintenance - It only make sense to keep equipment (that you intend to sell) under maintenance if NA is going to hit the buyers with fees far in excess of the equipments value and it would in turn void your sales opportunity. It is very hard for any vendor to declare a piece of equipment not eligible for maintenance, with or without certification, when it is currently under one of their contracts. There "was" a NA web page that generally spelled out the certification process. Email NA and ask them is the easiest way. NA has very good records of when equipment goes on and off of maintenance. They can use this to ascertain the overall vintage, service records, financial costs, etc.. associated with serial numbers. It only makes good business sense for NA to avoid things like cooked or known flakey gear. Yes, I agree that buying spares off the used market makes great sense for anyone who wants plug and play on-site sparing (new or old gear) and is willing to keep and reasonable supply of throw away spares. Sending these spares in for repair under another systems contract will generate a lot of problems and bills from NetApp. 3. Keeping equipment (old or new) under maintenance, software and hardware, is no more than an insurance policy against problems that can't be quickly fixed by swapping or going back to previous rev's of the software. I.e. You have discovered a new bug and need a fix because your business is being interrupted and your last SW or HW upgrade was one way. Given NA overall reliability, dependability and MTTR these cases are very rare, but they can and do happen. Keeping software under contract makes very good business sense. You get all the maintenance updates, upgrades, knowledge base, intellectual resources, etc. If you have a problem and are out of "last supported Rev" you have no support other than static maintenance releases on the old versions of software that you may have not installed. ( On-line support will be helpful, but their focus is on current supported releases of the products.) Hardware firmware fixes also come with these services. These can be used to keep your spare parts in sync.
I don't think we are really in disagreement.
Hunter
Hunter M. Wylie 21193 French Prairie Rd Suite 100 St. Paul, Oregon 97137-9722 Bus: 866-367-8900 FAX: 503-633-8901 Cell: 503-880-1947
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Scott Fischmann Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 9:19 AM To: Hunter Wylie Cc: scott@unioncomputer.com; 'John Enger'; 'Maren S. Leizaola'; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: Migrating from NetApp to EMC Celera
Hi, Hunter:
Regarding:
1) NetApp / EMC licensing: As with pricing, transferable licenses can be and have been negotiated. We have bought and sold dozens of used NetApp filers with transferable licensing. Prospective buyers should never assume that licensing terms can't be negotiated!
2) NetApp maintenance / recertification: In most cases, I don't think it makes sense to keep NetApp gear under maintenance solely because of concerns over recertification charges. NetApp's 4-hour minimum charge to recertify used hardware in the field is reasonable, and I have never seen them take unfair advantage by going beyond the 4-hour minimum. Also, I have often seen them waive the charge in order to persuade their customers to place used gear under NetApp contract. Next, why even place older NetApp hardware (and software, for that matter) on contract with NetApp? Because of the availability of cheap and plentiful systems and parts, there are significantly cheaper -- and oftentimes better -- 3rd party and/or self-maintenance options. Finally, a decision to forgo NetApp hardware/software support will not affect a filer's license status.
