MailFrontier & SonicWALL, don’t let your License Expire, or you’ll hate life.
All you companies out there that write software that expires, listen up.
If your software expires, and actually ceases to function, then you better have a plan to take care of the customer when that happens.
In 2006 the idea or renting software year over year is not a new one. So when your customer reaches the end of a year and their stuff stops and they realize they need it, chances are really good that they need it yesterday.
In 1986, when the web was slow and everyone connected with 9600 baud modems and mostly used AOL, web enabled customer support was mostly manual to no existent. I understand 20 years ago why you might not be able to give a customer a new license or temporary license right away even though email still worked pretty well back then.
Actually back then you could call someone and get them on the phone so chances of solving your problem were actually better than they are today, but that's a different subject entirely.
Let me give you a clear example of how not to do things.
We use a product called MailFrontier for Spam prevention and email Anti-virus. We've used it now for almost 3 years. By all accounts this has been an outstanding product. Support has been pretty good too.
This year however, MailFrontier was purchased by SonicWALL. That in by itself should have been a sign.
Towards the end of May I got a nice marketing SPAM welcoming me to SonicWALL, with instructions for using my; mysonicwall account. The instruction read:
SonicWALL also offers a registration and management tool that gives you the ability to download updates and upgrades, manage subscriptions and track revisions. An account on www.mysonicwall.com has been created for you.
Your serial number, username and password is:
It is a pleasure to welcome you into the SonicWALL customer community. We appreciate your business and look forward to supporting you in the future.
Note how complete this email was:
SonicWALL also offers a registration and management tool that gives you the ability to download updates and upgrades, manage subscriptions and track revisions. An account on www.mysonicwall.com has been created for you.
Your serial number, username and password is:
It is a pleasure to welcome you into the SonicWALL customer community. We appreciate your business and look forward to supporting you in the future.
There was also no mention that our licenses were about to expire. You see Mailfrontier is a pretty much set it and forget it server. It works that well.
Well low and behold about 5 days after the expiration date, on a FRIDAY evening no less, all hell breaks loose. SPAM everywhere, email Viruses everywhere. If we weren't running Trend on our back end Exchange servers "just in case" we'd have been hosed big time.
First we thought, crap, someone setup an open relay. So I spent about an hour looking for that. Then I realized, that no, our licenses had expired.
So, certainly, we share in some blame here for not keeping tabs on this. But I'm going to point some fingers too.
- SonicWALL/MailFrontier: WTF? Where was my notification? We had the server properly configured to send to the administration group. We get other notices, why not a notice about licensing? Oh but there was a notice, where was it? Written to the NT event log. How nice. Everyone looks there on a daily basis.
- What about your sales department? Didn't they want us to renew?
- CDW: My Rep. You let me down man. You guys have this wiz bang software license product that totally stinks. Nothing ever gets in there right. Not even the stuff you say you automatically put in there. So it's basically useless. You'd think you'd want to sell me more software too to support your new Race Car.
So here we are on Saturday night now (the day I actually figured out MailFrontier was screwed up or expired). I figured I'd try out Sonic's world class support.
It is our intention to renew this product, and since we've been a long standing customer, the least they could do is give us a temporary 30-day key to get us going. Right?
So I open a ticket, its 10pm on a Saturday night.
I get an auto-response that says; to talk to someone call the numbers on their website, I figure they have all these global locations, someone in some time zone should be awake, why not?
So I call in and low and behold someone answers.
Sonic: Good evening SonicWALL.
Me: Holly crap, someone's there.
Sonic: Why yes, we're always here.
Me: That's good to know, I need tech support, I have spam and viruses running amuck all over my network.
Sonic: Is this a new case or an existing case.
Me: Existing, case number XXXXXXXXX
Sonic: Thank you I'll transfer you.
Me: Stunned and astonished.
Me: …Waiting…
Me: Jamming to hold Music
Sonic: Still trying to transfer you sir…
Me: OK
Me: …Waiting…
Me: …Waiting…
Me: …Waiting…
Sonic: Sir, did you know our tech support was only 10:am to 6pm ?
Me: Nope, you said you were always there a few minutes ago.
Sonic: Well someone's always here, I can transfer you into voice mail.
Me: Is that 10-6 on weekends too? Can I talk to someone at 10am tomorrow?
Sonic: No sir it will be 10am on Monday, would you like the support voicemail?
Me: I already have a 'network down' ticket, what's the point?
Sonic: A voice mail is better than that, you should leave one.
Me: OK then.
Me: Leaves voice mail explaining problem.
At that point I figure I'm hosed.
Not 10 minutes later my cell rings. It's a Tech from Sonic. He explains he listened to my voice mail but he doesn't have the ability to generate keys. A sales person has to do that. I said; "OK, get a sales person."
Tech: Well, they are all sleeping.
Me: Wake one of them up.
Tech: Let me see if I can get my manager.
Me: Look, you have all of these sites listed on your website. You guys are global, get me a sales guy in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, I don't care.
Tech: Let me see what I can do.
Me: Can I set the clock back on my server to buy me some time?
Tech: No that won't work.
Me: OK
That was the last time I heard from that guy.
About two hours later I decide to try the clock thing. It works by the way, just know that your reports will be screwed up and if your server is part of active directory, AD will reset the clock for you so you need a batch file to keep the clock turned back. Something like this:
Make a simple .vbs script name it something like date.vbs and run it in a command line by typing:
cscript filename.vbs
Script:
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
do while true = true
wscript.sleep 10000
WshShell.Run ("date 05/05/2006")
wscript.echo "date reset to 05052006"
loopOf course kill this when you get your new licenses.
Fast forward to Monday, because Sunday Sonic support was useless.
Monday we ordered our renewal from CDW, which as it turns out doesn't buy directly from SonicWALL, so getting our keys today still might not be possible.
Again, the yahoo's at Sonic don't seem to get it. I get another email from them asking me to open a case so they can help me.
We've been on the phone now for two hours today (Monday) and still we've accomplished nothing. All we want at the least is a temporary key (or better yet the keys for our renewal) but they are too incompetent to furnish that. This is something MailFrontier would gladly and easily handle before the merger.
I think it's time to find a new solution.
Tags: SonicWALL, MailFrontier, incompetent, support, license_renewal, IT, software, expired, Truth, SPAM, date_time, CDW
Written by datapoohbah on June 5th, 2006 with
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