License held hostage!

[nvanlaar]

How many here know that a subscription is required to transfer your license between computers? I didn't. Note by Alibre: This is not the policy. Please see end for comment. I was told (lied too?) by the Alibre rep when I purchased my license 2 years ago, that I could transfer whenever I wanted as many times as I wanted. A few months later I decided to add the subscription so I never discovered this discrepancy. Until now. I did not have the funds to continue my subscription and was happy enough with 2012 for the time being to skip out on the subscription. I am a tinker by nature and love to be on the cutting edge of technology, so I am constantly changing my laptop (never my production workstation), and have consequently used up my 3 computer activations which was never a problem before - send in a request to deactivate an old one and activate a new one, no biggie (I thought). I recently have been playing with Windows 8 and will eventually buy it, but now I cannot run my copy of Alibre Expert because of the draconian licensing practices of Alibre until I re-up my subscription! I purchased my license and am using it legally following all guidelines (I thought). Had I known the truth, I would not have been so cavalier in license transfers. Alibre is free to come and do an audit if they wish. I have never had it installed on more than 2 machines.

What's even worse: when I tried to request a license transfer, I just got ignored. No reply email or anything. So I sent in several requests thinking something was screwed up on my part. I ended up replying to a sales flyer from my sales rep requesting help and got the run-around, more lies about what the "other" companies do, and the "Alibre is priced much lower so we can/can't..." BS and was basically told I'm SOL until I re-up my subscription. Why should I renew a subscription with a company who's sales people lie!? Besides, I already bought the license so stop holding it hostage and let me use it! And I don't care what the other companies do or don't do, this is about YOU (Alibre) and how you treat customers.

I like the software, but the way your sales staff acts and the way you do/don't do licensing is repulsive.

Please make this right.

Respectfully,
Nick

PS.
Why charge $100 for a "feature" that creates less work for your techs/staff?

 

[DavidJ]

Your comments don't seem to be in line with what is stated on Alibre's subscription page.

You can pay for Flex licensing if you want to change your licence keys yourself (most people don't need this ultimate flexibility/convenience). Those with a support subscription get priority for having keys re-allocated by Alibre ( 'skip to the front of the line' as it's put by Alibre), any who don't have support won't get priority. If you purchase via a reseller, your reseller can also re-set the keys.

I can't see anywhere where it says your keys can't any longer be re-allocated if subscription isn't in place, but I can imagine that it won't be a high priority job - especially if you make regular requests for it.

Did you send your requests to support? Did you include enough information to allow them to readily identify your account and the PC that should have it's key disabled? I agree that not getting any response at all isn't on (assuming your e-mail got through).

To use the word 'draconian' when describing Alibre's licensing policies is over dramtic - overall they are fairly generous.

 

[BernardK]

I think this is a difficult and sensitive issue. I have had maintenance in place since purchasing Alibre a few years ago. I have had keys deactivated a handful of times and it is usually done within one working day. This seems quite reasonable to me. I had one done earlier this week and it was completed within one working day. I certainly can't complain at that.

My understanding is that support do not respond to messages from users who are not on current maintenance. This includes software bugs and, it looks like, requests for license deactivation. I think this does go too far.

Seeing as Alibre have the technology to auto deactivate keys, perhaps they could consider allowing lapsed accounts to either continue with multi keys with no further changes, or convert to a single auto changeable key.

 

[bigseb]

... that I could transfer whenever I wanted as many times as I wanted...

I read the same thing. I believe it was in a thread here somewhere but can't remember exactly, it was some time ago. Essentially the message was "buy Alibre and its yours to use forever, subscription is just to get updates and support". This does need to be addressed asap by Alibre, imo.

 

[DavidJ]

Seeing as Alibre have the technology to auto deactivate keys, ....

??? Bernard - as you know I do some support work for Mintronics which includes de-activating keys when customers get new PCs. This is a manual process, not automatic. So called 'Flex Licensing' just opens this manual process up to the customer over the web.

Am I misunderstanding your point?

 

[DavidJ]

PS.
Why charge $100 for a "feature" that creates less work for your techs/staff?

Probably 3 reasons

1. It cost something to implement.
2. Those who really need it perceive some value in it.
3. A support incident isn't just a cost - it also has a value! An occasional request to change a licence key provides an opportunity to make sure contact details are up to date (for future marketing mailshots), maybe even check if you could use another product... If everyone moved to Flex Licensing, Alibre might actually lose some sales.

 

[BernardK]

Seeing as Alibre have the technology to auto deactivate keys, ....

??? Bernard - as you know I do some support work for Mintronics which includes de-activating keys when customers get new PCs. This is a manual process, not automatic. So called 'Flex Licensing' just opens this manual process up to the customer over the web.

Am I misunderstanding your point?

No, my misunderstanding really. My point is that Alibre can allow the user to deactivate keys which obviously takes some of the burden off support staff. If a lapsed account has the option of a single key as a flex license indefinitely this would allow the user to move PCs without support interaction. Clearly if a user is regularly changing PCs it will be a pain to continually flip license keys and may prompt a return to maintenance. A key change could also trigger a sales email to ensure that the user is up to date with the latest offerings.

 

[nvanlaar]

I made my request very clear, even stated why and gave a report of how Alibre is opperating in Windows 8. I got no response three times. I then contacted my sales rep by email who then called me (that part was a good response) I was then told I need to re-up my subscription before I could make any further transfers. I clarified this three times. So I was not misunderstanding what I heard. I was then offered a "deal". I could renew my subscription @ the current rate minus the late fee. Gee thanks.

I understand my request won't be "priority" and am ok with that, but should it take longer then a week?

I was also made to feel like a criminal because I had made 6 requests in the last year. :evil:

Really!? If I was going to pirate software, I would have done it from the beginning and never paid for it to begin with.

This whole thing stinks.
Thanks for confirming what I had been told earlier. The question is who lied? The old sales rep or the new one?

 

[Sergiol]

Nick,

I work in Alibre's support department and I can assure you that if you purchased a copy of the Alibre software with or without the subscription you should not be deprived of your 3 license grant at any point even if your subscription is expired. Like you mentioned above we do give priority to our subscription members but we still take care of our users whose account has expired (retired state).

You also mentioned that you sent multiple license requests and I would like to mentioned that our email screening is done manually (if the email is sent directly to support@alibre.com rather than using our webiste) so it is possible that we may have overlooked one request but I do not believe this would be the case if it was sent multiple times. I am not sure why we were not able to receive your requests (maybe filters *shrugs*) but I truly apologize if you feel ignored or that we are just trying to milk money, this is not the case or not with this issue at least.

I hope this helps and if you have any other question or issue please email us at support@alibre.com or try calling us directly at 877.525.4273.

- Sergio

 

[nvanlaar]

Sergio,
I sent all of my requests through the website portal. It would be nice to at least send out an (auto) confirmation email so we know you got the request.

I was informed that accounts get "red flagged" for frequent transfers and I could not make another license transfer until I re-subscribed. Yes, I am calling out the sales rep now that I have received confirmation from an Alibre employee stating otherwise. This individual needs to be made aware of Alibre policies and I hope he has not try using these sales tactics with anyone else. Is this company policy? Absolutely horrible. I will be sending a request directly to support@alibre.com and expect a response within 3 business days. I hope this resolves the issue.

Thank you,
Nick

 

[nvanlaar]

Issue has been resolved.
Thank you Sergio et. al. and I hope the sales rep has been notified of actual Alibre policy.

Nick Van Laar

 

[Max]

I was informed that accounts get "red flagged" for frequent transfers

This happens in the most extreme cases, which you are not even approaching. And most of the time customers have a totally legitimate reason for doing so. Nonetheless it should not have been communicated to you that you fell into this category as you do not, and even if you did the way you describe that communication happening would still be out of line. We will correct.

and I could not make another license transfer until I re-subscribed.

Incorrect.

Is this company policy?

No. In fact here: http://www.alibre.com/training_support/ ... e_info.asp at the very bottom right you can see we publicly say that if you are on Subscription Service you get the "fastest possible" account-level support and skip to the front of the line. The benefit is not "you can switch your license around", it's "you can switch your license around within the standard customer service response time".

Absolutely horrible.

Agreed. It will be fixed, and I apologize for your experience. Our policy is explicitly that people can keep their licenses indefinitely even if not on subscription service and that they can migrate them.

We had a lengthy internal debate before releasing Flex Licensing about not allowing people to migrate licensing at all if they are not on Subscription (some other companies do this too), but overwhelmingly those involved in the discussion did not feel it was fair and we decided to err on the side of caution and continue to allow customers not on subscription service to be able to contact support and move their licenses. Note that the discussion was never about "can people keep their licenses"; it was about "do we offer, in perpetuity, for the next 30 years for argument's sake, unlimited license support to customers that are not on subscription service". Most companies do not do that, and we have decided we want to offer that to our customers. Mind you, those types of requests are put at the back of the line behind people on Subscription Service, but you should not be denied from being in line.

Again, we apologize, and we will fix it. For your trouble I will be applying a year of subscription service to your account over the next few days.

Also, please be aware that if your email (especially 3!) goes unresponded to for any real length of time, it's likely we are not receiving it or it's getting put in the SPAM filter (which is very difficult to manually look through with a public email address that's been around for almost 10 years - we get thousands of spam emails per day to our public emails). You said you used the Alibre Portal - that shouldn't even be visible to people that are not on Subscription Service. As such there might be a bug if it is visible to you. Please email me at maxf@alibre.com and let me know exactly what you were looking at when you submitted something through our website.

And please feel free to call Support in these instances and we will get you taken care of.

Max