$50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Rich,

From a purely academic standpoint, I think I agree with you.

From a computational horsepower, development effort, etc... point, it's simple over-engineering and not worth it compared to what we've got. The $50 tool isn't too blunt and you're correct it isn't too finely toothed either, but it's ok.

$50 simply isn't that much. If it's a temp employee buy the seat for a month or partial month and then lower your seat count.

I can't fathom anyone here has employees they'd fire if their only option was a $50 a month raise or to lose them.

So yes if we had Gomez style pricing (they're a high availability monitoring service) that starts at like $20k a year and you buy "Gomez Points" and it's based on consumption, at those price points I agree with you.

Also it's worth noting (I've said this before, but this thread is so long it's likely been lost).

There are 4 open issues we're solving by MivaCon in March:

1. The Certified Developer Issue. Specifically Miva Certified Devs will have a special license that allows their user to bypass the seat requirements in any store they're in. It'll only be able to be used in any one store at any one time.

2. The Multi-Site Store owner. We have quite a few customers who run multiple stores and have the same employees in those multi-stores. In the long run, we imagine being able to manage multiple sites from a single Miva admin, in the meantime we're working on a super-user concept that'll be more than $50 but way less than having to buy them for many sites.

3. The API User issue. We're working on a solution that'll allow for API users (Synchro, ShipWorks, StoneEdge, etc...) and they will be separate from the user count.

4. Non Profit's. This one we're going to handle on a case by case basis, but we'll have special pricing for Non-Profit entities.

[Rich]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

OK Rick this is better from a developer point of view - time to get certified.

API users would be really good, this is a real issue with owners.
Some of my clients are really not happy and I am sure you have heard from some of them. At least now, if I get certified, the client doesn't have to "pay my way" to develop for them.

I still think giving two seats as a base and charge for the rest is the way to go.

[lesliekirk]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Also with the "kick out" process in Version 9, this should slow you down more than 5 seconds when you switch computers, leave them both logged in, with one "stuck" at the kick out screen.

I have recommending that every user have or create their owner user name / login. This will help you identify who is logged in verses seeing 6 instances of the same user name logged in from a variety of IP addresses.

In your case, you could create upstairs and downstairs versions of your login. Although you may not need it.

Leslie

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Leslie brings up a good point, there's another thing you can do as well.

Create two users for you Diana. One is Diana the Administrator. Only use that user if absolutely necessary (basically it's just a placeholder).

Also create Diana the "User" who's not an Administrator in the Miva sense.

This way you won't even have to do the kick out thing, just logging in from a new computer with the same username will auto-kick the other one out.

So when downstairs, if you're in upstairs, you don't need to do anything (other than login), it'll handle it for you.

I hope that made some sense.

[mstewart]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

For your existing customers, this approach to pricing is a very poor bait and switch approach. At any level, it impacts the customer negatively. We have went from 5 SLUs essentially down to 1 and I'm sure we are not alone. As good customer service, all of your existing customers should be grandfathered to a reasonable number of SLUs. This seams fair, at least for a period of time that is respectable.


We would better accept more packages up front towards tiered pricing based on number of SLUs and various other features that reflect a well thought out product offering and not a haphazard introduction to a new pricing model. We are also enrolled in Design Club and now have to compete with the design team for access to our own system.


The issue it not a matter of cost for customers, its a matter of principle and assuring the customer you care about having their business. This implementation could have been an opportunity to showcase the new release and solidify long and lasting customers by acknowledging some flexibility and relief for them as they transition to the new product. Now, customers have to scramble to purchase additional SLUs just to function.


We have been a 15 year customer and advocate for Miva and have been excited to see the growth over the years.

[SpeakerRepair.com]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Rick, in post #62 and #63 of this thread I asked if 5.5 is included in the $50 per seat model and you said 5.5 would only incur a NCF fee after 90 days.

So now you are including 5.5 in the $50 per seat charge? Or am I not understanding this correctly?

Rick,

Can we please get a clarification on this? Are you charging additional seat fees in 5.5?

Thanks,
Eric

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Can we please get a clarification on this? Are you charging additional seat fees in 5.5?

Our pricing model change was not and is not dependent on Version of the software and if you go back and read the letter Russ sent out (http://www.miva.com/miva-licensing) you can see that.

We altered our business model to go to a per admin seat model and we timed it with the release of Version 9 for three major reasons.

1. There's lots of amazing new features in Version 9 and it certainly helps people see why paying more for something than they used to pay is still being built upon and added to, etc...

2. The technology to manage the seats properly is built into Version 9.

3. We considered switching to this model a year ago, but didn't think putting put a PR8 Update 13 with only the seat management as a new feature was a worthwhile use of our development resources.

With that said though, if we had the logistical ability to bill all of our customers for seats today, we would. The business model change is fundamentally and philosophically separate from Version 9.

So in practical terms, we've billed the top 200 estimated seat users who host with us based on the data we did have and we didn't want to cause a panic on the 10k plus other customers who weren't getting a manual bill.

That process is manual and our data is sometimes exactly correct and sometimes off (so we've had to manually handle and adjust for each case, as we don't want to improperly bill anyone).

So if your question is do we intend to bill users on old versions per seat? The answer is yes, if possible, but frankly it's not probable as the logistics are simply too difficult.

And I do owe you an apology as I simply sidestepped your question in 62 and answered about NCF's as opposed to answering your actual question. I should have either ignored it, or told you I didn't know how it would work and we'll be updating our FAQ on this in the coming days to explain the policies and procedures as they're finalized.

[SpeakerRepair.com]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

And I do owe you an apology as I simply sidestepped your question in 62 and answered about NCF's as opposed to answering your actual question. I should have either ignored it, or told you I didn't know how it would work and we'll be updating our FAQ on this in the coming days to explain the policies and procedures as they're finalized.

Thanks for your answer. But I'm still not entirely clear. We are hosted by Hosting4Less, and use 5.5. Will we be charged a per seat fee or not? I'm sure we will be upgrading to Merchant 9 eventually, but as of today we are not.

Thanks,
Eric

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Eric,

In your case, no you won't be billed.

[sbronstad]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

a few observations:
Miva did a poor job of communicating. People don't (usually) get upset if their expectations are met.
Miva appears to subscribe to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"
Miva shows amazing contempt for their customers.
I'm shocked that Miva's idea of customer service is sending me an invoice for $350/month because several months ago we had 7 users logged in at the same time... and I'm supposed to "feel better" that you're only doubling my monthly fees rather than tripling them?
Nathan Osborn emailed me last night to let me know "Sorry if this caught you by surprise. " and then proceeded to tell me how many different ways Miva informed me of the change. I don't know if you guys are counting, but there are 22 pages to this thread... I was on the phone on hold for about 10 or 15 minutes waiting to speak to someone in billing.
I'm guessing Miva will just dig in their heels and make more comments about how we can afford a doubling of cost.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Scott,

First we certainly don't subscribe to that philosophy, if you knew me or us off Miva, you'd actually find that reference hysterical (i'm closer to being a pure capitalist than anything).

I'm not sure what you mean by digging in our heals? We're changing our business model, we're going to lose some customers over it. We know that.

We don't like losing customers, but we also won't attempt to save them at all costs. I lived through the first generation of Miva's ownership when we had many hundreds of thousands of live stores and had to beg the power company to not shut off our power (back in the 2001 time frame). So having lots of users isn't an actual business model.

In addition, yes this thread is 22 pages, but many posts in this thread are asking clarifying questions, many are in support of where we're going, many get the big picture.

So if you have specific questions, I'm happy to help.

I also can't imagine thinking we have contempt for our customers based on how we handled this change (think about Comcast and how they handle things and compare).

Did we bungle the messaging? Yeah a bit. Would we still change the business model? Yes without question.

[sbronstad]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Mr. Wilson, you blew a great opportunity to rally your customer base. Instead, you opted to piss a bunch of us off-- to ask forgiveness (if one can call it that) instead of "permission".

In this thread you've explained your reasons. Your prior communication didn't do that. Even now, all you can say is "Did we bungle the messaging? Yeah a bit. " A Bit? The first clear "messaging" I received was an invoice.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Scott,

Do you mind shooting me an email? I'd like to ask you about something off forum.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

While I'm in the "yea, they messed up the messaging a bit" camp (and, its a pretty chunky bit) I do have to chime in with something WE run into all the time with OUR customers. We send out dozens of emails for, say a required update or policy change. Only to find that probably over 30% of our customer base claims they NEVER see the message.

What we've discovered over the years is that some store owners treat emails way to casually. We've been saying this from day one but it stands repeating. When you signup for important services, USE A SPECIFIC, DOMAIN BASED EMAIL ACCOUNT...and flag it in your Email Client. (I'd consider Modules and Store Registration pretty important.)

If you didn't see the message about the change...then you didn't do the above.

[monkeyevil]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

So lets get this straight. I'm still paying ~$140 for hosting (40gb + some extra DT) per month with Miva, and I just got a bill for another $300 for "6" seats. So now I'll be paying $450 a month until I upgrade to 9, and then I do a song and dance so 4 users can login at work and home.

Awesome.

I understand you have to make money. I understand your time is worth more than you were charging. But maybe you could have ramped up incrementally instead of raising the rent 300%