harryting
Lifetime Supporting Member
I recently had a conversation with our local RA distributor and learned a few surprising thing (to me)
Also, this is mentioned here:
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=127426
The biggest takeaway for me is this:
Newly acquired software will no longer be covered under your existing TechConnect.
Instead, one can either buy or subscribe to the software. The subscrption is fairly straight forward, just an annual fee while the purchase is more complicated. Instead of being covered under TechConnect, a purchased software will only come with 1st year support. After that, there's a per software charge for support, while it's less than the subscription fee, it's not a small amount either.
This really make my life harder as I help manage the many copies of RA software for our group and bunch of plants in our company. Some plant only breaks out their RA software once or twice a year and this will probably force them to integrate what is currently run by AB PLC into the bigger DCS system they have.
I have expressed my strong opinion on this change to them and remind them that RA shouldn't try to be a "software" company, they should be a control system company and if they want to be something else. I will have to evaluate our path forward as well.
Also, this is mentioned here:
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=127426
The biggest takeaway for me is this:
Newly acquired software will no longer be covered under your existing TechConnect.
Instead, one can either buy or subscribe to the software. The subscrption is fairly straight forward, just an annual fee while the purchase is more complicated. Instead of being covered under TechConnect, a purchased software will only come with 1st year support. After that, there's a per software charge for support, while it's less than the subscription fee, it's not a small amount either.
This really make my life harder as I help manage the many copies of RA software for our group and bunch of plants in our company. Some plant only breaks out their RA software once or twice a year and this will probably force them to integrate what is currently run by AB PLC into the bigger DCS system they have.
I have expressed my strong opinion on this change to them and remind them that RA shouldn't try to be a "software" company, they should be a control system company and if they want to be something else. I will have to evaluate our path forward as well.