Software Maintenence

I'll start posting some links as examples, and I'll try to write up something this week to answer this question that I have answered many times before. I'm also going to close this thread so it can be an actual answer and not a slug fest.

First of all, don't get me wrong. I have to pay SMA's for the CAD software we maintain, and I don't like it either. And I have to pay retroactively, or buy a new license also. I also dislike paying for my car, I dislike paying my mortgage, in fact I hate all bills it's fair to say. To everyone who tells me to review our policy... it's been reviewed many times. It is not even above average in restrictiveness, it is a completely normal SMA policy.

Here are some examples of SMA retroactive policies. I expect most companies to obscure this information, as no one wants to pay for software development including me. Yet I understand the need, and when I was a customer, I always recommended we pay it just as insurance for when we needed support. (We were high volume, over a million parts a year).

IBM Software Maintenance Agreements

Starwind

Compusense

J-Integra

Also, please give customer relations a call if you think the price is too high and get a quote. They will work with people on pricing if you are way out of SMA.

More later, this was what I found in my first google search...