Well Lookie Here, Barracuda Networks tries to get me to fall into their trap again...

[bicknell at ufp.org (Leo Bicknell)]

In a message written on Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 10:54:55AM -0800, Michael Thomas wrote:
> At that point why should they sell iron at all? Seems like you get
> all of the downside of owning the iron, and all of the downside of
> paying for a cloud based service. Either you own what you own,
> or you pay for service that somebody else provides. This "you
> bought useless hardware unless you pay up" is really what's
> infuriating.

I didn't say the box should stop working, but that it should stop
processing the subscription data.  For instance Barracuda boxes do
local bayesian filtering, which does not require a subscription,
and should continue to work.

But I'm also not sure why this is any more or less infuriating than
other things in the real world.  When my home was built I had to
buy an electric meter, at my cost, so I could get electric _service_.
If I don't pay the bill they turn me off, that hardware is now
useless and I don't get to recoup that cost.

Barracuda has bundled a hardware product with a service.  Some people
want it priced like a hardware product, some people want it priced like
a service.  That is fundamentally why they are in a no-win position from
a customer relations perspective.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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