Support pitfalls of proprietary software

By apexwm, 27 July, 2010 17:02

Proprietary software and hardware that keep secrets behind closed doors can cause a lot of headaches. Proprietary software in particular is purposely kept secret by the organization in control of it, in order to give themselves leverage and also to "protect" the software, in their opinion. However, this can cause a lot of headaches for the end consumers using the software. For this example, I'll only discuss product support. All product support for proprietary software is normally funneled through the vendor company itself, as there are usually no ways for 3rd parties to support the products since they are proprietary and kept behind closed doors.

The consumer is often forced to go to the company in control of the source code for any problems. This can make it very costly because the company in control can charge just about any fees they deem necessary. I've been faced with situations where a company demanded an outrageous hourly rate, equivalent to those made by a lawyer. And since we were locked in, we had no way around the situation, we ended up paying for about 2 hours of support (which was also their minimum). Other similar schemes are support contracts that the consumer must pay an annual subscription for, yet sometimes the support contracts aren't even used, which results in money thrown down the drain.

Another common problem is when trying to contact the company for support, the consumer can experience extremely long hold times on the phone or also have little to no success in getting through to anybody. I've been in a situation before where the support line went to voicemail, and after leaving multiple messages we could not get any responses. We had already purchased the product, so we were stuck. Eventually we managed to get through, after quite a bit of wasted time. This activity is all too common now, where you get a great sales pitch but when it comes time for support of their product, it's practically nonexistent. The consumer could end up taking the company to court, but consider the amount of work and wasted time that involves.

And there's the fatal situation where a company that previously released software completely goes belly up, bankrupt, or just fizzles away into existence. This is the worst scenario, as all support is basically dropped completely, unless another company comes along to buy its assets. But, even then it can still be a mess with knowledge transfer among the two companies, etc.

So in the end, consider the tremendous benefits of open source software. The code is not owned and controlled by one entity. This means the community itself can support it, which opens the doors up for all of us to share it. Best of all, it often means the product is also free of charge for the original purchase, and for support. Sure, you won't get phone support or direct one on one support that you can still get for some proprietary software, but do you really need that type of premium support? With message boards, wikis, IRC, and other forms of excellent support methods of open source, the old fashioned phone call or even email support seem like old methods.

Talkback

I can think of two more pitfalls with "support" of proprietary software.

Suppose a large company is making a software product which effectively monopolizes the market. Then, that company decides that they want to SELL a newer version of the product, rather than continue to support the version which you have already paid for. You, as the consumer, have no alternative but to eventually purchase the new version, whether you really want/need it or not.

Suppose further that the NEW version of the monopoly product turns out to be such a complete pile of excrement that it is unusable. The supplier sees the opportunity to make even more money, by issuing yet another "new version", which in spite of the fact that they themselves say is "what the previous version SHOULD have been", they force you to pay for yet again. By choosing to use proprietary, closed-source and monopoly products, you as the consumer have no alternative but to pay the price, again and again.

But of course, this would never happen in the Real World, would it? People would never stand for such behavior, much less pay to support its continuation, would they? Maybe they would... but the only way to make a clear statement that this kind of thing is not acceptable is to stop using such products. Period. As apexwm says, the benefits of using open-source products are clear - but the penalties of using proprietary products should be equally clear.

jw
J.A. Watson 28 July, 2010 08:21
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Thanks for the comments, Jamie, definitely a great point you have. The scenario you described happens all too often in the Real World. It seems that some companies just continue to pay their fees and move along until the time, and then the process repeats itself all over again.

Thankfully, open source software is immune to this as well. First, since the developers of open source software are usually the ones using the software, it is well written and won't have the issues of being a huge piece of junk. However, hypothetically if there was an open source product as such, people would stop using it and either somebody would pick up the source code and fix it, or write a replacement from scratch. And, thankfully open source isn't controlled by greedy companies that purposely force customers to re-buy it over and over again.
apexwm 30 July, 2010 13:35
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I'd also like to add a comment about another example from past experience. Support for proprietary software often requires registration or activation of the product. In most cases, this process seems like it is only used to get contact information of the customer so that the company can send information later on how to pay for upgrades. Sure, they say that it's for product updates, but with proprietary software, product updates often require the customer to re-buy the newer version (just like Jamie mentioned in his comments). But, some software vendors require registration or activation to activate support for the product. This often registers the name of the person that activated it. If that person leaves the company, this information can become lost, or is locked in their name and other people are denied access to the registration information. This leaves the customer digging through records to try and prove they purchased the product.
apexwm 30 July, 2010 18:01
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