On Mon, 20 Feb 1995 18:00:55 -0600 "Laurence A. Bates"
<[log in to unmask]> said:
>It appears to me that you have incorrectly stated your case. You claim
>that "The prices you got are not public and are not being offered to the
>general public" but as the following email message indicates the prices
>that I quoted were prices that were sent to me as John Q. Public and
>represented the prices of a shipping product. As the following email
>extract indicates, they had nothing to do with the Beta agreement and
>clearly were not covered by any agreement explicit or otherwise.
Laurence,
I'm afraid I stand by my original claim. Our salesmen have instructions
not to issue quotes for anything but the graduated licenses when the
requests come from John Q. Public. In fact, they have instructions to
first tell John Q. Public that the software is still in beta, and provide
the [log in to unmask] address as a point of contact for further information.
If the customer asks for pricing they forward a copy of the VMS price
list for graduated licenses with an indication that this is the expected
pricing for the NT version. We could find dozens of customers to confirm
that this is what happens. Now, Elena should probably have clarified that
all the prices she gave you were for beta sites, and that the product was
not shipping to John Q. Public. But she probably figured that you knew
this, being on the beta list and having received all appropriate
information a few days before, to wit:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 19:45:54 +0100
Reply-To: LISTSERV for Windows NT - beta test programme
<[log in to unmask]>
Sender: LISTSERV for Windows NT - beta test programme
<[log in to unmask]>
From: Eric Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: End of beta
(...) Unfortunately, we are going to have to delay the official release
by about a month. One reason is that (...) we don't have the icons,
logos, price lists, announcements and other marketing things we need to
^^^^^^^^^^^
release the product. The other reason is that, in parallel with the NT
development, we have been working on a new version of LISTSERV (1.8b)
which is due out in a month or so. Well, it wouldn't really make sense to
release version 1.8a for NT this month and then 1.8b a month later.
To compensate for this unfortunate delay, we are going to allow beta-test
sites that need to start using LISTSERV in production as soon as possible
to buy the product now. While the marketing prose isn't ready yet, the
sales folks are now authorized to make quotes to organizations in the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
beta group.
^^^^^^^^^^
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know Laurence, it seems pretty clear to me. Now, if you'd asked
for a quote 3 months from now, I would understand your assumption that
the product had been released in the meantime. But on Jan 27, I said the
release would be delayed by about one month and that the beta sites could
purchase now. Five days later you asked for a price quote, and you're now
telling me that you thought the product had been released then? Why on
earth would I tell the beta group that the release would be delayed by a
month if we knew we were going to release within the next 5 days? If in
doubt, you could always have asked L-Soft to confirm that the beta was
over and that you were now released from your obligations. I don't know,
I just find it difficult to believe that you felt it reasonable to assume
that the product had been released a mere 5 days after we stated it would
be delayed by a month, and that you were so sure of this assumption that
you decided it did not need to be double checked.
Again, the root of the problem is that you have been dealing with
programmers and salesmen, and not with lawyers. If you had been dealing
with lawyers, it would have been made painfully clear to you at each and
every stage that this quote was for the beta group only. The next time
MSU wants to beta test something, we'll make sure you deal with lawyers
so that this regretful incident is not repeated.
Now if you don't mind I would like to move to the second part of my
complaint, which you haven't addressed - the part where I said that you
misrepresented our pricing policy. You stated that we charge $7,000/year
for access to the software. You cite the price quote you received from
us:
>The perpetual licenses are $4300 for an unlimited license. Maint. for
>the NT version would be $2500 yearly. If you decide on a perpetual
>license, you can take a 10% New Customer Discount off the total or the
>license and maint. The second year maint. will be the standard rate.
Again, this seems pretty clear to me. A perpetual license is, by
definition, a license that is valid forever. That is what the word
"perpetual" means. We were offering to sell you the right to use the
software forever for $4300. We also offered maintenance at a yearly
charge of $2500. Maintenance, as you know, is optional, at least in the
computer industry. If you want new versions, fixes and support, you can
get that from us for $2500. If you're not interested, you can pass. I
don't see anything in this quote that could lead you to believe that we
charge $7000 yearly. Again, if you were not sure, you could have asked
L-Soft to clarify.
What I'm trying to get at is that I think you've made a mistake here. I
think most people would simply have apologized for the misrepresentation,
and the issue would have been closed. Instead you come up with this story
of a product silently released 5 days after we said the release would be
delayed by a month, and provide evidence to support our claim that you
misrepresented our pricing policy. I am still willing to accept an
apology from you and consider this a genuine mistake on your part, with
no malicious intent.
Eric
|
