Are Extended Support Fees Immoral and Indefensible?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/19/software_support_fees_immoral_and_indefensible/
and
http://blogs.gartner.com/rob-addy/2012/03/18/are-extended-support-fees-immoral-and-indefensible/

 

Immoral and Indefensible? Most certainly not. Do people expect free lifetime support for a product? Especially when there are newer updater versions? Support staff doesn't work for free. And if one of them leaves a new person has to be trained. And when you continue to support an outdated EOL application, you have to train them to support that with no returns. Which equates to you are then paying people to use an outdated product. The software business is a for profit industry like anything else. If someone considers that unreasonable then they can run Linux or some free alternative.

 

This guy is full of crap. Are some fees unnecessary and greedy? You bet. But overall, fees are there to help pay the salaries of the guys and gals in the trenches, getting yelled at for 8 hours a day when a user has a hissy fit. What should be a crime is all the BS many users have to go through just to get said support agent to pick up the damn phone..and then pray to whatever God they believe in, that it's not some hole in the wall call center in India.