In the early noughties We had a RSV32 system with a number of SC505's on it.
The original supplier went to the wall along with the source code, RSV license disks and passwords for everything, although not very old we decided to upgrade the RSV Scada and enhance it, I was very familiar with Rockwell but had no experience with RSV, We placed an order for over 27K of software and the Rockwell rep & reasonable expert came along to help set it up if we struggled, No problems with installation and they sat there drinking coffee as we did not need their expertise. This is what I call good service & backup.
However, a couple of years later when RA limited their supply base, introduced Tech connect, put their prices up & started introducing updates faster than I could change my underpants a query I had on a new system we put in left me feeling that all they are interested in is extracting as much cash out of their customers, gone is the free support (well a very long wait) if you spend money with them, updates that you need as there appears to be no backward compatibility extortionate prices the list goes on. Many other companies sadly are also going this way but RA's business strategy ensured that from that moment on we switched suppliers and as an estimate I reckon that over 800k of sales have been lost by them. This is probably a drop in the ocean to them but I wonder how many more smaller users have dropped them in favour of companies that will support you for a modest or no cost.
I have spoke to many system houses, most are small concerns as they are usually contracted to the larger OEM's or Manufacturing companies, most of them would drop RA but sometimes are stuck with them due to customer requirements.