>It also means that with 12 months of ServiceLink at $1,885, plus 12 months of server support at $595, plus 12 months of Mail Protection at $1,295, plus 12 months of VPM at $795 -- in other words, a fully loaded SME V5 server -- is $4,570 per year (equivalent to ~$381 per month.)
Woa, there. The $175/mo ServiceLink offering *includes* server support, monitoring, antivirus, guaranteed email, IPSEC VPNs, and DNS. The other products you list (support at $595/yr, Mail Protection at $1295/yr and VPNs at $795/yr) are for customers who want to pick and choose portions of the full ServiceLink bundle.
In other words, $1885 includes everything.
Now let me try to clear up the confusion over prerequisites. Exisiting customers can opt to continue with support at $595/yr. New customers can choose between the $595 90-day package, which includes support and all the ServiceLink services, or they can sign up for a year of support and the full ServiceLink offering for $175-month. Either way, they can, if they wish, switch to a support-only agreement once the initial subscription has expired.
In simple terms that means a new customer that wanted support-only would purchase the $595 all-inclusive package for 90 days (during which they can try out ServiceLink), followed by the $595 support-only product for 12 months. That would provide a total of 15 months of support.
Why are we doing it this way? Because ServiceLink, quite simply, is central to what we are doing. The comparisons to another well-known software company are specious because nobody is forcing you to buy anything from us. The base server software was and remains freely downloadable. And because it's open source, anyone can hang up a shingle and offer to support it (just don't rip off our marketing material - that *is* a violation of copyright). We, however, have chosen to target those small and medium-sized businesses for whom our offering makes a great deal of sense and is excellent value.
Yes, every service we offer can be replicated to a greater or lesser degree by some other means -- and this may be perfectly acceptable to those with a lot of time on their hands. I can guarantee you, though, that there is no faster, more reliable and more secure way of deploying a server with the features we are offering. As for cost -- well, that depends on how you value your time. Can you deploy a server with all of the SME V5 features, plus virus protection with automatic updates, plus all the DNS configuration, plus the backup email service, plus the monitoring, plus setting up an IPSEC VPN, in under 20 minutes and do everything remotely? Because we (and our Authorized Partners) can.
Ross
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