[WinMac] Apple breaching contracts over OS-X?

Daniel L. Schwartz(expresso[at]snip.net)
Thu, 25 Mar 1999 09:37:14 -0500

        If you are a corporate Apple customer and have an Upgrade Contract,
better click on:

 <<http://macweek.zdnet.com/1999/03/21/licensing.html>; and follow this
link to Macintouch at:

 <<http://www.macintouch.com/mxsrhaplic.html>.

        The last letter (as of this morning) from a confidential source
describing his experience with an Apple VP calling him was especially
troubling... There are over 1.5 million licences covered by Apple's
agreements. My experience only tells me that a contract is only as good
as the people that sign it.

        I quote from the article:

>>>>

<excerpt>Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999

From: [MacInTouch reader]

Subject: Apple Software Maintenance Programs

To: [MacInTouch Confidential]

I had a VP of Apple personally call me ... after months of fighting with
Apple over Software Maintenance agreements that we had established over
the years. According to this individual, all maintenance programs are
axed at the point of subscription lapse. This comes all the way from the
top and apparently no amount of persuation has been able to get Steve to
change his mind on this.

I had the regional manager here ... and we talked about this. He pointed
it out that it was specifically due to OS maintenance agreements that
Apple was able to advertise that even before OS8 had shipped, Apple had
sold more than one and one half million copies. This was a slight of hand
only afforded by the maintenance agreements already in place. He also
went on to suggest that one of the primary reasons that maintenance
agreements were being axed was because of the OSX release. Apple wants to
sell only new licenses.

The woman I talked to yesterday said that she had exhausted her influence
over the matter and that she fully understands what this means to
Government and Fortune 500 organizations that operate on an annual
budget. (In my case, if software and hardware purchases do not take place
within the first quarter of the new budget, they do not take place at all
except under dire emergencies. This is why the maintenance program at
Apple and Microsoft and others have been so convienient for us.) She told
me that only a grass roots level protest would gather any movement to
curb this decree.

... I have [volume] OS maintenance licenses that are contracted for two
years at for a total cost of [thousands of dollars]. We thought that this
was fair for both parties, Apple and us. We would never spend that much
money on OS upgrades if we did it on a per user basis. Apple gets the
money and we get OS upgrades for two years without having to think twice
about it. This also insured us that we were license-compliant. As my
original email to this VP (that apparently made it into Job's hands), to
ax this program almost guarantees that many sites beside my own will
struggle to stay that way in the future.

just my .02

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

        Like I said, a contract is only as good as the people that sign it...

        You've been warned...

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