Change the interspire Upgrade Policy
The interspire Upgrade Policy states that if you do not renew your maintenance period and it expires, you will need to purchase another product license at RETAIL PRICE to receive the latest version and renew your support contract.
This is not acceptable and should be changed.
When you buy the Product you pay for a a selected period of maintenance and should NOT BE FORCED into an EXTENDED maintenance agreement just so that you are permitted to upgrade at the UPGRADE PRICE at a later date.
You should be able to buy a future release at UPGRADE PRICING whether you have a current maintenance agreement or not.
Penny
shared this idea
Hi everyone,
After really listening to your feedback and talking to hundreds of customers, we’ve now officially changed our upgrades and maintenance policy.
Here’s an overview:
- All new purchases include 12 months of maintenance free
- All upgrades are provided to customers free instead of being paid
- If your maintenance period expires, you can optionally renew it, however it’s completely optional
- All customers have been given an extra 9 months of maintenance free, giving them more technical support and the latest release of the Interspire Shopping Cart free
The new upgrade and maintenance policies have been really well received by customers and we really do thank everyone for your feedback, both good and bad.
You can have your say and learn about our new policy (which was implemented last Monday) here:
http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/477/
Cheers,
Mitchell Harper
Interspire Co-Founder
mitch [AT] interspire [DOT] com
21 comments
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Kevin Treman commented
This is has not been fixed just requires $500 a year for support weather you use it or not. Event if you want to change a domain name for product already purchased. Interspire has the worst upgrade policy I have ever seen. Just complete BS. This has made me rethink Interspire for any future purchases. I have over 16 licenses you do the math!
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rockethead
commented
Thanks for listening Interspire. Ya gotta give kudos for the stuff that's right too. You will make the money up down the road with this new and better policy. Thanks!!
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IT
commented
I have started three different companies on MS share point since your attitude was so poor on this issue. One very big customer. well done on sorting this out but still a bad taste and not a whole lot of confedence that you guys are terribly customer focused after that lot. Would need to see a whole lot of advancement in the product to get over that for me.
Good start. -
IT
commented
Inappropriate!! Wow, I used to think there may have been a manager in Interspire who didnt understand successful modern pricing structures not it appears it seems to be an endemic attitude across the organisation.
I am also now going to be in the position of recommending e commerse software to new customers and although i do like the ecom software I will not now be recommending it to anyone based on the Interspire culture. Wise up guys! -
xps
commented
"inappropriate"
That does say it all doesnt it? -
DC
commented
inappropriate.... This is MORE than SAD of interspire...
Sure you can ignore what your customers want.
Your just a company with lots of bad reviews.
I feel more of them coming. -
charlie.foxtrot
commented
The current policy is cynical and greedy. Hey, I'm all in favor of Interspire making a profit... that's great! ~ But this is a slap-in-the-face and an outright insult to their current customers.
What makes this policy MORE disappointing is that it comes on the heels of Interspire abandoning ISC 4.0x (planned obsolescence?) even BEFORE all the bugs had been fixed... and WITHOUT 4.0x having the most basic coupon-code features that are present in *every other* mature shopping cart program.
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xps
commented
Thats their answer:
"To downgrade to IKM (Professional edition, 5 staff login(s), 12 months extra support) would cost $346.50 USD.
That is 50% off the $495 license plus $99 for the 12-months of support."all i want to do is extend my support program - and you guys tell me it is 50% purchase cost -> Upgraded support. And now you tell me i also need to pay 99$ support? For what? Support for my support?
Thanks, good bye - back to activecampaign -
xps
commented
I bought only one product - but i was alwys paying my upgrade price of ~100US per year. than suddenly they changed the product, its pricing and the product policy. They 'was happy to tell me that you get a 20 User version for free' - i thought thanks - but than it came to the point where i needed to buy new support and they asked ~800US for that. i complained and they told me support is 50% off the current price and i can downgrade to 5 user. I tried 5 user and it was 346,50 but it should be 247,50. the whole story just sucks from a customers point of view. If someone knows a good knowledgebase replacement let me know.
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IT
commented
Too late im off this is the worst policy ive come across for software support/ updates to date.
Not to mention the fact that even if i don't 'upgrade' the support on old products becomes limited, and they have cranked up the price of the Knowledge Manager software by nearly 100%. At least if the upgrade was available as long as you had a valid subscription that would be something but to pay for a slugish support contract and not get the upgrades without having to pay is a really weird buisness model and i for one am out! -
interdev2php
commented
prices and upgrade policy as it is makes us move to a different cart it's just not feasible with multiple licenses
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Kitelife
commented
Ya, same boat here... I don't mind paying a flat $50 or $100 a year for ongoing support and upgrades, but asking customers to PAY outright for upgrades every .5 or full version change is bullsh*t... I'm seriously considering switching to another cart for this reason.
This is just short of extortion, and I have a hard time pitching it to my clients.
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gudge
commented
I am about to dump $4,000 of interspire products because it wlll be cheaper in the long run. Having said that I would love to stay with them, they just dont make it feasible.
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galante81
commented
That's why i moved from IWP to Joomla. They just want more and more money from customers, which is unacceptable. We should also pay for every 0.5 version, and every +1 version.. it could be few times a year! Interspire went in wrooong direction, future will show this. They can get only new customers which do not know what are they buying. No one with common sense will buy anything from them..
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Martin
commented
This is why I am moving ALL my clients to another platform, my clients cannot pay fore this as they have paid already! Madness
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Penny
commented
I shudder to thinking what it will have cost to own the Interspire products in time to come. If the Shopping Cart was a mature product which included features like Sliding\Dropdown menus for categories and Configurable Products and wasn't having bug fixes all the time then it would be worth it. It seems that they are simply unable to get the dropdown menus done, or are they purposely prolonging?
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KARTHOST
commented
The Adobe model for upgrades would be a good start, don't mind for paying for upgrades, what my customers seem to be concerned about is they never know what to budget, as the pricing isn't consistent and there could be multiple major upgrades per year.
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rockethead
commented
yeah this is total crap. It makes me look like i am trying to bleed my customer. you're basically being held captive. i'm seriously thinking of switching to Magento or some freeware. I can't even get believe they want my client to pay another $1000 or whatever. I cannot even markup the price at the risk of looking even more greedy. never seen this before, ever.
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HennieB
commented
The idea of upgade guarantees that are offered by the likes of ADOBE would be an option.
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HennieB
commented
Totally agree with this comment.
"You should be able to buy a future release at UPGRADE PRICING whether you have a current maintenance agreement or not"
