The firm I work with has licensed a Progress business application that uses a Progress database. We have current Progress licensing. My management is under the impression that having a Progress end-user license does not entitle us to direct technical questions to Progress. In our case the questions would always be with regard to copying our data from Progress to SQL Server for reporting. Is it true that our Progress license does not entitle us to any support from Progress? This would be a shame when the application vendor is not very good.
Progress Licensing Question
- Thread starter BCM
- Start date
i don't think or know of any limitations on *copying* data
do you have support from your app vendor ? i think, in most cases you
do have support from progress but it has to go thru your vendor
try asking your vendor to forward your question to progress. i don't think or
highly doubt they can be dishonest on progress licensing.
recently on peg there were a few online open discussions for a couple of
hours with our famous gus bjorklund on anything from the db to licensing
it looks like there will be more to come including product managers etc.
do you have support from your app vendor ? i think, in most cases you
do have support from progress but it has to go thru your vendor
try asking your vendor to forward your question to progress. i don't think or
highly doubt they can be dishonest on progress licensing.
recently on peg there were a few online open discussions for a couple of
hours with our famous gus bjorklund on anything from the db to licensing
it looks like there will be more to come including product managers etc.
Ok. I give up. And I now have a better understanding of why so few IT managers in the U.S. are aware of Progress. It is because no IT manager of anything but the smallest IT shop would bet his/her future on independent application vendors who may be here today and gone tomorrow. Having no direct support from Progress, yet being required to pay tithe to Progress and to the application vendor while accepting so much risk is a very bad position to be in. I don't see how a CIO in his/her right mind could choose a Progress-based application unless the firm's total suite of system application needs could be met by Progress-based applications.
lets not make it personal, i'm in very much the same situation you're in.
it is diff, maybe unique. customers mostly don't buy progress directly they buy products that underneath are built on progress.
there's no retail side to progress. from what i know their sales force targets cfo's.
an app partner is also the reseller and when you pay them support they pay progress for support.
you can say that it's a niche and not as high-end, but it has worked for them for almost 2 decades and it certainly does have a foot print.
it is diff, maybe unique. customers mostly don't buy progress directly they buy products that underneath are built on progress.
there's no retail side to progress. from what i know their sales force targets cfo's.
an app partner is also the reseller and when you pay them support they pay progress for support.
you can say that it's a niche and not as high-end, but it has worked for them for almost 2 decades and it certainly does have a foot print.
Joey -
Another comment, if this has worked for two decades than Progress must be a rather small firm itself. I have not investigated, but perhaps they are not a publicly held corporation. I personally have nothing against small firms, and, in fact, prefer to work within one myself. However, I have learned through actual experience that small firms do not offer the security of long-term business continuity as does the typical large institution (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle).
Borland is an example of a smaller firm that just could not get the market share it needed though Borland's products and languages were always superior to those of Microsoft and Borland's always cost less.
Another comment, if this has worked for two decades than Progress must be a rather small firm itself. I have not investigated, but perhaps they are not a publicly held corporation. I personally have nothing against small firms, and, in fact, prefer to work within one myself. However, I have learned through actual experience that small firms do not offer the security of long-term business continuity as does the typical large institution (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle).
Borland is an example of a smaller firm that just could not get the market share it needed though Borland's products and languages were always superior to those of Microsoft and Borland's always cost less.
i'm not necessarily trying to make a point, but it's still interesting because the amount of attention we give it.
i recently sat on a meeting of a potential customer that took place at another long time customer's site (which btw also uses sql server and sap).
the meeting took a few hours, walked thru product, there was also some sort of field tour and so on.
at some point the question on the tech involved and customization etc. came up and the customer who was leading the meeting gave him a strait answer
...and that was it, to me, it seemed like 2 seconds. i was somewhat taken by surprise, i thought it would spark this long discussion.
i recently sat on a meeting of a potential customer that took place at another long time customer's site (which btw also uses sql server and sap).
the meeting took a few hours, walked thru product, there was also some sort of field tour and so on.
at some point the question on the tech involved and customization etc. came up and the customer who was leading the meeting gave him a strait answer
...and that was it, to me, it seemed like 2 seconds. i was somewhat taken by surprise, i thought it would spark this long discussion.
BCM said:
you do, its part of the product.
BCM said:
there's no separate progress license costs, it's embedded in the products cost which would need to be competitive.
but you can buy progress products/licenses from a local progress distributor regardless.
Joey,
I apologize for all these questions.
there's no separate progress license costs, it's embedded in the products cost which would need to be competitive.
Does this mean that the vendor actually decides the Progress licensing amount? Furthermore, when considering the upgrade to Progress 10.x, is the vendor the party who dictates to us what the 10.x licensing will cost us? So, if there was no change necessary to the application source code, but the user wished to upgrade to version 10.x to eliminate some of the SQL/ODBC problems inherent in 9.x (like having to stop and restart the database to make changes to the SQL Width), would the license cost be determined by the application vendor?
This is very unusual to me. I am accustomed to being given application requirements - platform, cpu, memory, operating system, libraries, etc. - that I must acquire in order to run the licensed application.
Furthermore, this truly places an enormous responsibility on the application vendor. Creating a well-designed, robust, scalable business application is challenging by itself. Systems integration is a challenging arena for anyone. It seems far too much to expect the application vendor to understand the technical difficulties of integrating Progress with the end user's applications and network. Franky, this would be funny if we did not have a Progress application. We will be free of this, though. At that time, I'll be laughing because Progress has pursued this course on their own.
I appreciate the insight you've given me. Our relationship with Progress and the vendor is like a very bad marriage. The divorce may get ugly, but we will be free to enjoy our life when it is over.
I apologize for all these questions.
there's no separate progress license costs, it's embedded in the products cost which would need to be competitive.
Does this mean that the vendor actually decides the Progress licensing amount? Furthermore, when considering the upgrade to Progress 10.x, is the vendor the party who dictates to us what the 10.x licensing will cost us? So, if there was no change necessary to the application source code, but the user wished to upgrade to version 10.x to eliminate some of the SQL/ODBC problems inherent in 9.x (like having to stop and restart the database to make changes to the SQL Width), would the license cost be determined by the application vendor?
This is very unusual to me. I am accustomed to being given application requirements - platform, cpu, memory, operating system, libraries, etc. - that I must acquire in order to run the licensed application.
Furthermore, this truly places an enormous responsibility on the application vendor. Creating a well-designed, robust, scalable business application is challenging by itself. Systems integration is a challenging arena for anyone. It seems far too much to expect the application vendor to understand the technical difficulties of integrating Progress with the end user's applications and network. Franky, this would be funny if we did not have a Progress application. We will be free of this, though. At that time, I'll be laughing because Progress has pursued this course on their own.
I appreciate the insight you've given me. Our relationship with Progress and the vendor is like a very bad marriage. The divorce may get ugly, but we will be free to enjoy our life when it is over.
BCM said:
it really depends on the type of agreement/partnership the vendor has with progress.
if they're getting the products with a discount and reselling them or some percentage-of-application agreements etc. and they make up their own kind of licenses
you could just check with progress maybe you do have support and because of that you're entitled for upgrades, maybe ?
it's non of my business but any reason why you wouldn't want to ask your vendor ?
BCM said:
usually there are no changes in the source needed and within the same major release recompiling isn't even necessary, usually.
a client of mine went thru a serious upgrade a few years back (while i was in the army) jumped a few versions even changed the server.
i think in their case they were entitled for the upgrade and they payed for some consulting and someone who could install the product.
i'll make sure to ask them after passover.
Joey,
The reason we would not want to ask the vendor is because they will not respond to us in a timely fashion, and when they do respond they will not have expert knowledge. For example, do you recall one of my other threads in which you and Tom Bascom explained to me that the best performance would be to run the 4GL on the same machine as the database? The application vendor is the one who told us to distribute the application components. Also, recall the 2-3 hour 4GL job execution times I am working to resolve. The vendor has no solution to this problem. The reason is because the solution would involve re-designing the application and underlying database. However, they refuse to take responsibility for their product.
In the U.S. we have protection against products like this. It's called the 'lemon law'. Our vendor is not a U.S. firm. Furthermore, the 'lemon law' does not yet include software.
The reason we would not want to ask the vendor is because they will not respond to us in a timely fashion, and when they do respond they will not have expert knowledge. For example, do you recall one of my other threads in which you and Tom Bascom explained to me that the best performance would be to run the 4GL on the same machine as the database? The application vendor is the one who told us to distribute the application components. Also, recall the 2-3 hour 4GL job execution times I am working to resolve. The vendor has no solution to this problem. The reason is because the solution would involve re-designing the application and underlying database. However, they refuse to take responsibility for their product.
In the U.S. we have protection against products like this. It's called the 'lemon law'. Our vendor is not a U.S. firm. Furthermore, the 'lemon law' does not yet include software.
BCM said:
it has partner program everything from putting together your market strategy to business and techical empowerment programs.
BCM said:
i liked that
well, you're not married to anything, if it's not working for you kick it out (easier said then done).
but even if you do, don't forget to come visit us kids every once in a while.
BCM said:
i'm really interested to know have you done or looked into making changes to your configuration
or just tried running some 4gl queries on a self-serving connection ? really interested
btw while we're on the subject what was the last time you've done a dump and load.
maybe you could get a contractor to look into the code. there are plenty of excellent well known contractors in the states
you've mentioned your vendor doesn't supply you with the source code. maybe you do have it, it's just encrypted
it depends on the situation but it could be broken. i've even seen some how-to's on the net.
again it really depends but three hours is a long time. by any chance are you running nuclear reaction simulations or weather predictions, that would explain it.
TomBascom
Curmudgeon
Application Partners typically * list the Progress license as a separate charge. They resell it from PSC at a discount -- as part of that arrangement they are responsible for support. That's where the "no support from PSC" stuff comes from.
If a vendor is defunct (or effectively defunct) you can go to PSC and ask to become a "direct" customer which will allow you to obtain support for Progress, not the application directly from PSC.
If you go direct you'll probably be burning any bridges that might remain between yourself and whatever remains of the partner.
BTW, Progress is a public company and has been since the late 80s or early 90s. They're traded on NASDAQ under PRGS. The stock has been around $27 or $28 per share for quite a while. Market cap is about $1.17B. They aren't Oracle or Microsoft but it isn't Joe's Software either.
* Some partners embed the Progress cost in their license cost. Others, particularly ASP & SaaS partners, use an arrangement called "percentage of application" so that there is no distinct "Progress License" line item...
If a vendor is defunct (or effectively defunct) you can go to PSC and ask to become a "direct" customer which will allow you to obtain support for Progress, not the application directly from PSC.
If you go direct you'll probably be burning any bridges that might remain between yourself and whatever remains of the partner.
BTW, Progress is a public company and has been since the late 80s or early 90s. They're traded on NASDAQ under PRGS. The stock has been around $27 or $28 per share for quite a while. Market cap is about $1.17B. They aren't Oracle or Microsoft but it isn't Joe's Software either.
* Some partners embed the Progress cost in their license cost. Others, particularly ASP & SaaS partners, use an arrangement called "percentage of application" so that there is no distinct "Progress License" line item...
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