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It's an interesting case. I'm personally responsible for selecting the vendor, the package cost around the AU$25,000 and the module to interface with this part

It's an interesting case. I'm personally responsible for selecting the vendor, the package cost around the AU$25,000 and the module to interface with this particular machine was a $3100 line item included in that total, to write the module from scratch using the manufacturers specification for the language the machine reads. They already had a module they'd written for a very similar machine from the same manufacturer. They've made a few tweaks to it, but are now saying the algorithm from the core product isn't designed to do what I want to do and they doubt head office will approve the expenditure to change it. It's an industry standard procedure, and we have collective experience with two other software packages that fulfil the requirement by default. I personally cannot fathom how they would get to the point of saying "no", but it's definitely been an interesting view in to the realm of commercial / industrial software sales, development, etc. I don't know how I am going to advocate to my employer that we continue to pay the $3000 per year maintenance fee for unlimited upgrades and support when they can't even deliver on what they agreed to. That and the core software is riddled with minor, but annoying bugs. If they could fix this issue with the module for our machine, and chip away at the smaller issues over time it would actually be perfect for our needs.

WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
What you experianced was a sales person needing to make a sale. They will promise and then they hope the programmers/techs will deliver. It's very common for software sales, in any field, to do this. Here's another common got you. They will sell you the software very cheaply and get you to use it in your business. Once the software becomes an important part of your business they will sell you upgrades at many times the original price. At which time you'll have to choose between upgrading or dealing with old buggie software. Switching to another vendor won't be an option since it will be much more expensive than the upgrade. They have you. There are just too many unknowns to say that just because it works in one model it will be a quick change for another model. It sounds like the mods are for very specialized software so most likely you have no choice but to work it out with them. Look for alternatives but I dought there are any. They probably understand their competitors enough that they know that saying no to you is a safe bet. Your job now is to lay down some options for your boss and let him choose. It's very important that you don't hide anything from him. He needs to know and understand everything. It's just life. We can't always get 100% of what we want.

WheelsAtLarge 7y ago

What you experianced was a sales person needing to make a sale. They will promise and then they hope the programmers/techs will deliver. It's very common for software sales, in any field, to do this. Here's another common got you. They will sell you the software very cheaply and get you to use it in your business. Once the software becomes an important part of your business they will sell you upgrades at many times the original price. At which time you'll have to choose between upgrading or dealing with old buggie software. Switching to another vendor won't be an option since it will be much more expensive than the upgrade. They have you. There are just too many unknowns to say that just because it works in one model it will be a quick change for another model. It sounds like the mods are for very specialized software so most likely you have no choice but to work it out with them. Look for alternatives but I dought there are any. They probably understand their competitors enough that they know that saying no to you is a safe bet. Your job now is to lay down some options for your boss and let him choose. It's very important that you don't hide anything from him. He needs to know and understand everything. It's just life. We can't always get 100% of what we want.