Wednesday, May 16, 2007
VMWare 6.0 Is Here But There's a Huge Catch
I love, love, love VMWare 5.0 and I've done all the betas of VMWare 6.0 - love it! So when I got the email from VMWare announcing the launch of VMWare 6.0, I was ready to get my upgrade. (Here's a list of the new features in 6.0: http://www.vmware.com/support/ws6/doc/releasenotes_ws6.html#features)
The catch is this: if you subscribed to the "VMware Technology Network Subscription" for $300 per year *and* your subscription expired before last week, you must pay FULL RETAIL PRICE for VMWare 6.0 - $189. So you're asking, "Why did you let your subscription expire then?" Because they bloody well canceled the damn subscription - you couldn't renew it any more. My subscription expired in March - $300 *per year* that I gave them and I wasn't allowed to renew it.
The difference between the full retail price of $189 and the upgrade price of $99 isn't huge but it's the principle of the matter that gets me. In the span of 14 months, VMWare wants nearly $500 and, in my opinion, is trying to really stick it to me, the customer, with this approach.
In full disclosure - to show you how much I love VMWare 5/6, LearnItFirst.com is a Microsoft Certified Partner which means we get "x" number of licenses to run Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and MS Virtual Serve but I pay VMWare $300 per year for the privilege of using their product because it was so great.
"Wait a minute, Scott. You're kvetching about paying VMWare *less* money than you would've paid them if you had the VMWare subscription - why?" The VMWare subscription included a *lot* more than just Workstation and, to get the same benefits today might cost $500-$700 or more depending on what I wanted a la carte.
I guess I just expected VMWare to sell this to me at the upgrade process and I'm miffed that they didn't.
Want to speak your mind to VMWare about this? Here's their contact us page but egads is it bad. They force you to enter in all sorts of unnecessary/unrelated/annoying stuff just so that you can ask a question. A better suggestion is to email them directly: sales@vmware.com
The catch is this: if you subscribed to the "VMware Technology Network Subscription" for $300 per year *and* your subscription expired before last week, you must pay FULL RETAIL PRICE for VMWare 6.0 - $189. So you're asking, "Why did you let your subscription expire then?" Because they bloody well canceled the damn subscription - you couldn't renew it any more. My subscription expired in March - $300 *per year* that I gave them and I wasn't allowed to renew it.
The difference between the full retail price of $189 and the upgrade price of $99 isn't huge but it's the principle of the matter that gets me. In the span of 14 months, VMWare wants nearly $500 and, in my opinion, is trying to really stick it to me, the customer, with this approach.
In full disclosure - to show you how much I love VMWare 5/6, LearnItFirst.com is a Microsoft Certified Partner which means we get "x" number of licenses to run Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and MS Virtual Serve but I pay VMWare $300 per year for the privilege of using their product because it was so great.
"Wait a minute, Scott. You're kvetching about paying VMWare *less* money than you would've paid them if you had the VMWare subscription - why?" The VMWare subscription included a *lot* more than just Workstation and, to get the same benefits today might cost $500-$700 or more depending on what I wanted a la carte.
I guess I just expected VMWare to sell this to me at the upgrade process and I'm miffed that they didn't.
Want to speak your mind to VMWare about this? Here's their contact us page but egads is it bad. They force you to enter in all sorts of unnecessary/unrelated/annoying stuff just so that you can ask a question. A better suggestion is to email them directly: sales@vmware.com
