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<p>Mike,</p>
<p>I have had the same experience with customers over the years when
they wanted to move to something WINDOWSY.</p>
<p>The loss of speed and flexibility is very hard to handle.</p>
<p>I have had more than one customer return and fire up filePro to
get the job done.</p>
<p>But I have also seen the price tag for a runtime/dev system push
away small users. How can you make a little app that could help a
small business when the cost of the runtime puts you out of
competition. How do you justify an upgrade from a system that
works perfectly at 5.0 to a 5.8 version when the cost will be over
$10,000 and the customer will have to spend even more to get any
development in place to use the new features if they even have
such a need. Also the cost of actually doing the upgrade, since
the system requires an entire index rebuild. In addition, in my
experience filepro often breaks programming when you apply a new
version to it. This could disrupt the business while those issues
are sorted out.<br>
</p>
<p>The requirement they make for a system to move from Unix to Linux
but the Linux has to be a current version so they are required to
upgrade however many versions, often just buying a new filepro. I
understand the need for cash flow but when a customer does not see
the benefit for the upgrade it is a hard sell. This pushes
customers happy with filepro but unhappy with the OS to solving
their programming with something other than filePro.<br>
</p>
<p>I realize there are new features to be had in filepro, but I see
those apps that were already "perfect" having difficulty with a
price to upgrade when the new features are of no real benefit to
them.<br>
</p>
<p>I have customers that have been using filePro since 1982 and by
1993 they had it working the way they wanted. We did an upgrade
for Y2K in 2000 and they have been working ever since with no
issues, except small user errors. How do you argue to a customer
with that history that for a cost of upwards of $2000 they could
get a new version with features they will never use?</p>
<p>I think filepro could continue to support older versions and make
money doing it. The support gives them an opportunity to up-sell
if the need is there but also just make money on the support.</p>
<p>I think filePro is wonderful. I can solve problems quickly and
manage data well. I just think it would have a wider audience if
the pricing was more in line with other development software and
runtimes were more competitive. <br>
</p>
<p>My two cents. Likely about all it is worth.<br>
</p>
<p>Nancy<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/1/2018 8:55 AM, Mike Schwartz via
Filepro-list wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:023901d3c9b8$c20b9220$4622b660$@athenet.net">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">How do you guys manage to sale filePro today?
$349 per seat is a price tag and then some ... I am one that believes that
So, how about some tips on "filePro sale pitch" to win those ever present
battles!!!
--
Jose D. Lerebours
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
It is odd that a customer pays a few thousand dollars for a system,
runs it for 15 years as the "heart and life-blood" of their business, then
complains about paying another couple of thousand dollars that will probably
carry the system forward another 15 years. I bet they don't get 15 years of
dependable life out of their delivery trucks or their office furniture...
Since they are happy with their old SCO operating system, why switch
that to Linux? I'm sure you can find hardware that will still run the SCO
operating system. Bill Campbell and others here on the list can probably
assist you in virtualizing their old SCO server, if they simply want to
virtualize.
Business decisions are ultimately ALL about payback. So, when trying
to sell a customer on upgrades, normally I emphasize the "quick payback"
that they will get with the new reports or new filePro features. However,
since this is a "lateral" move to Linux and if they are not interested in
having you do more programming to make use of the new filePro features, they
won't get a quick payback on their investment.
So, the only payback they will get is that the "heart and life-blood"
of their business will have been overhauled; similar to buying all brand new
delivery trucks.
It is probably worth mentioning the new filepro features to them. For
example, maybe they will want you to add filePro's direct PDF printing to
their system.
Remind them that there is a heavy cost to switch software. Just the
function of SEARCHING for a new software package will probably consume a
LOT of man-hours. They have to look at things like training and buying a
LOT faster server and hardware system than their old filePro system
requires. Windows apps have their uses, but Windows systems are not always
the best option for database systems, even if their users do not type 100
WPM.
For example, a few years ago I had a large insurance brokerage who
spent more than $350,000.00 to "upgrade" to a "canned" MS-Windows insurance
database system. After almost 3 years of testing and adding more and more
Windows servers, they tried to go "live" on the new system. Unfortunately,
they never could get things to balance on the new system and found it took a
LOT longer (like 10 times as long) to enter insurance policy info into their
new system as compared to filepro. Also, they just could not get the same
"sort and select" reporting flexibility that their old filePro system had.
Finally all of their managers confronted the bosses and told them they
were going to QUIT unless they went BACK to their old filePro system. So I
had to scramble for a couple of weeks to get them a couple of new servers
and upgraded filePro system so that they could cut back over to their old
filePro system!
One of my favorite sales phrases is: "Every time a user has to take
their hands off of their keyboard and move to their mouse, then scroll
around a page and position the mouse to the next data field, they have lost
a LOT of time."
So, in this case, I advise:
1) Do NOT move off of SCO (Xinous) Openserver. There's probably no valid
reason to spend the money to do that.
2) Think long and hard about considering moving to any new software
package. It will probably end up costing a LOT more than you thought it
would.
3) Non-GUI database applications are NOT dead. They are typically more
cost effective than GUI Windows based apps are.
Hope that helps...
Mike Schwartz
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Nancy Palmquist MOS & filePro Training Available
Virtual Software Systems Web Based Training and Consulting
PHONE: (412) 835-9417 Web site: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vss3.com">http://www.vss3.com</a>
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