Topic: ServiceLink too expensive

[Thor Anthrax]

ServiceLink sounds good to me, but it is NOT value fot that money

[WXP]

how much does it cost ?

I cant find the price...

[WXP]

860 Swiss Francs which means 547 US Dollars

That's true ?   are they crazy ?!

[Thor Anthrax]

The recommended list price of SME Server V5 with ServiceLink (Base Pack) is $175 (U.S.) a month with a 12-month subscription, or $1885 a year if paid in advance. A three-month Base Pack subscription is available for $595 (recommended list). Authorized Partners are free to set their own prices. Each subscription may be used for one server.

[WXP]

Dont you think it's damn expensive ?

You have to pay for the time you wanna use it..

it's like the Microsoft  .NET

I'm disappointed.....

[Brandon Friedman]

As a partner, I can most definately see the benefits of Servicelinks.

It all depends on the client that will be using the product..... If it is a small network, with a limited budget, then of course it isn't value for money.

If on the other hand, it is a large corporate client then Servicelink are great. When it comes to larger clients, they want things like remote, central management, monthly reports, 24x7 alerts etc.... They will most definately see the value in these services and for us it is a monthy/residual income! It isn't just a once off sale!

However the only down side for us overseas is the $ exchange rate.... and currently it is getting worse everyday!

Regards
BF

[J Strome]

Whether ServiceLink is too expensive depends entirely on the type of business you're running and it's size.  I'm an E-Smith newbie, but I've been doing IT for a long time, and the pricing is quite comparable with other offerings from HP, Compaq, and other VARs.

Yes, the average home user isn't going to be able to afford ServiceLink...  neither is the 2-5 person business (likely).  But to a small company of about 100 people, this sort of service is useful, and Mitel/E-Smith doesn't seem to be asking too much for it, when compared with other VARs.  The average Linux user would be shocked senseless to discover the typical cost of a visit from a Sun or HP technician ("$2500 service charge to physically move this little server into a RACK?!")... or the cost for 7x24 remote server management (don't even go there).    

Nice thing about the E-Smith stuff is that it's open source.  If your business requires ServiceLink, by all means get it.  But if not, you can make do with the free download.

[J Strome]

Something just occurred to me that might interest those of you not too familiar with managed service business models and pricing schemes:

A company I worked for in the past (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent...   had a $2000 US/year service contract with another company.  What was the contract for?  Hitting port 80 on our website on a regular basis to make sure the server was up at all times -> if they didn't get a response, they paged our data center.  The other company had points of presence in a couple different countries, and could therefore ensure that the website was available globally...  we could check port 80 internally ourselves, but that meant nothing if something died at the Bell data center down the street...

Might seem expensive to you and I, but it was the going rate for that kind of service...

[Grethus Bode]

I agree that for a larger company the price is reasonable, but for smaller companies it would be a good idea to pay per user. This makes it also available for smaller companies or even the homenetwork. If you keep in mind that a virusscanner costs about $ 100 to $200 a year. It would be nice to have such a service. I do not know how much time and money mitel has to put in every company who uses there services. If they only have to set it up for al companies ones, that it would be very affordable for them to have also al the 'local' networks added to it. 10 times $ 100 for just the small ones, makes big money afterall.