The end of software

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I don't understand your logic/math

"One big up front payment, plus upgrads every couple of years, the cost of extra staff, and support and maintenance fees could be double or triple the cost of paying by the month."

Two problems with that statement:
1-Salesforce is priced much higher then off-the-shelf CRM software (30,000-39,000 for 50 people, for 1 year). Off-the-shelf CRM can be perpetually licensed for about what you would pay for 2 months of salesforce service. Also, in my experience, I have never had to hire extra staff to administer a CRM package. For these reasons, I believe your statement regarding double or triple the cost of paying per month to be incorrect.
2- The ACT 4.0 prog, for instance, can still be used effectively today. Why upgrade when there are no real changes to it other then look and feel. Once you have it in place, the cases that compelled one to use CRM for cost savings no longer apply because you are already getting these benefits with your old package. But even so, just to be nice, I upgraded all my CRM users to 6.0 for 2004 at a fraction of what it would cost to use the salesforce service. And as we all know, when the software is running on your own box, it's more stable and secure then any web app.

If anything is dead, it's the upgrade treadmill. When there's nothing left in a prog to upgrade, then they present you with a subscription plan that will force payments whether it's upgraded or not. This will all catch up to salesforce eventually and perhaps cause them to set more realistic pricing but until then, they are a big ripoff.

"Remember, they administer the computers, patch the os, upgrade the os, patch the application, upgrade the application."
The IT staff has to keep all OS up to date regardless of what apps are being used.

"You might be able to unplug your servers and reduce staff."
That's a bit far fetched when you have accounting apps, proxy, office suites, graphics, etc., etc. etc. That statement implies that CRM is all you need to run a business which is a far cry from reality.

"Then the managers can focus on what your business is all about."
I don't know what goes on in your company but here, our management team IS focused on the biz, and IT is focused on the server, workstation, PBX, CNC, and alarm sytems.

"Chances are it has nothing to do with virus problems."
Remember we're talking about a web-client app here, it has EVERYTHING to do with virus problems.

Posted by: NT Admin   Posted on: 07/23/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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