It seems we have been too generous with our software update policy. For a long time we would let people continue using our software with their license as long as the internal "release date" in the software was within a year of their purchase date. We were also very slack on updating the internal release date, allowing lots of free maintenance releases, and therefore depriving ourselves of much-needed revenue.
Since we lost a big client last summer, times have been tough, and we need the upgrade revenue from our old customers. Normally, when a quote service changed their web site, we would continue updating the quote service parameters so the old software would still work. This week, after Yahoo changed their web site yet again, I thought it was time to try a different approach, especially with customers who have not paid anything for several years: as gently as I could, I am asking customers to upgrade to the latest release. In other words, it's time to pay up.
As much as I would like to continue supporting our old customers indefinitely, we just can't afford it any more. I'm a customer too, of other companies, and I hate being on the upgrade treadmill as much as anyone, but there are just some products that are too important to me to be without, and I'm hoping that applies for our customers as well. I want to support customers who support us, and we don't charge so much for our software that customers can't afford to pay a little every year.
