Microsoft Business REady Enhancement Program

Dear all,

Our vendor has requested us to pay for Annual Enhancement Renewal fees.

I wonder what is this Enhancement does?

Can I just ignore this?

TQ

Hi

You need to verufy exactly what this is. Microsoft charge an annual fee for your continued usage of the software that allows you the ability to have the upgrade software free, hotfixes and bug fixes etc. However depending upon how this is packaged and sold you may also get direct support with your vendor etc. You really need the details of what they are asking for, and the benefits these give. As they are asking you to pay they should also try and sell you the renewal fees, and therefore explain what you get for your money.

You should also ask exactly what they mean by right to upgrades hotfixes ect. because just having the right to them for no additional cost, doesn’t mean you actually get them for no additional cost.

We pay the maintenance and have a Navision 4.0 non service pack installation. our solution center has made some modifications for use and we have made some changes, such as reports, and making forms look how we want, ect.

We ended up identifing a problem that was fixed in SP1, related to bank reconciliations. so great we pay maintenance they have a fix we say lets load it. the solution center says they can’t just load SP1, our database has to be converted/upgraded to SP1 and the fee to do that is around $10,000 that covers them examing our database and making the programing changes needed to move it to SP1, The other option we have is to have them just make the specific programing change we need for the bank rec issue for $500, that is their cost to downgrade the fix to our 4.0 installation. So we have the right to updates, we just can’t load them without paying additional money to the solution center to actually do it.

Of coarse SP2 and SP3 have come out, since then, and everyone here says you should be on the latest service pack, well that is not really very realistic, since it is much cheaper to pay for the specific bug fixes to be done then it is to pay to have the whole database upgraded.

Now we also have the right to 5.0, of which I had them send me the code. But just having the right to it, doesn’t mean we can move to 5.0 for no additional cost. the solution center has to bill you for there serverice to upgrade your database.

Now if you don’t pay for the annual ehancement, then you can’t buy any new licenses, or granules, ect. you would have to be content to stay with just what you have, and pay a programmer on the side to make changes or fixes.

I liked your opinion about Navision maintenance has an end customer. You are right in several points.

Microsoft lately has more focused in releasing legal update and bug fixing to the lasted release, forgetting that exists customers with previous versions. Several customers that I know are still using Navision 3.70. They don’t want to migrate to a newer version. Has they said, everything its just working fine. I don’t want the problems and costs to upgrade to a newer version. I’m freelancer I don’t sell licenses or have similar profits, but it’s hard to sell to a customer maintenance plans if new legal updates and bug fixes isn’t covered by his version.

Even so I think it’s important that customers has maintenance plans.

Also, with the enhancement plan, you gain access to all the training materials that the partner gets. This will reduce your training cost to your consultants when you hire new employees.