Licensing issue

[griner]

Good Morning all,

I am writing this to try to understand what my sales rep is calling a new policy at Veeam (within the last few months). I have a customer who purchased Veeam standard back in 2009 before essentials was available (in the less than 6 socket scenario). They purchased 2 sockets back then and ultimately was not able to use it due to the vendor at the time refusing to support visualization. Fast forward to today and the same vendor now embraces visualization and we are in the middle of a hardware refresh. I requested, was quoted, and submitted an order for 4 sockets of essential. Once submitted it was kicked back by Veeam with the response of you have already purchased a license and as such are not eligible for the essentials product. I explained the scenario to my rep and after and unanswered email to my rep and a reluctant phone conversation (on my part) I was provided a quote that complies with the policy. Said quote basically doubles the cost of the licenses for the customer. I support other customers also and what I am trying to understand is why is Veeam forcing good customers to jump through these hoops when they have a clearly valid explanation for the policy and all they are trying to do is purchase a license that fits their needs at a reasonable cost. Any insight would be much appropriated.

[Gostev]

Hi, Guy

I am sorry for the inconvenience.

These forums are run by Veeam R&D, and we cannot comment on any sales related issues simply because we have no knowledge of their rules and policies. I recommend that you ask your Veeam sales rep to have his or her manager give you a call.

Thanks!
Anton

[griner]

Thanks for replying!!... Been down that road and finally have a Manager looking into it... Thankfully if Veeam is unwilling to accommodate the customer our reseller CDWG has stepped in and said they will make it right.

Unless I am totally missing the point on the new policy the only reason Veeam would refuse to sell essentials to a customer that doesnt need it is to maximize profits by selling more expensive licenses.

[Bunce]

Same thing happened to us - we had a few independent (not-for-profit) subsidiaries who's IT functions were managed by us - each needed only to use essentials, but because we already had a number of enterprise licenses covering our corporate sites, and we needed to centralise everything under our name - Veeam knocked it back.

We tried for a while advising Veeam that these archaic policies would cost them business, but didn't get any timely responses, so we simply pushed these customers onto another backup product. The subsidiaries are quite happy though.

[griner]

Yea so aggravating that Veeam truly has no interest in making the situation "right". I have talked with the Sales guy on multiple occasions and he keeps telling me how Veeam wants to make it right but in the same sentence he tells me they wont sell me essentials.

Very poor customer service thus far. Thankfully CDWG will do what they can even though Veeam will not.

[griner]

Just a quick update to this... the phone call I received from the Manager now seems to be nothing more than a pacifier with never a real intent to solve the customers issue. With every interaction Veeam seems less and less like a company that cares for the customer.

[foggy]

Guy, I've forwarded your request to Veeam regional sales management, let's see whether they are able to address the issue.

[griner]

Thanks... I received a call from my rep this morning advising that they were going to make an exception for the customer. The customer is being required to sign an LOD to purchase the essentials which is fine.

I think its great that they are providing the customer the license that fits their needs. However I'm aggravated that I have spent 3 weeks, 30+ emails, and way to much time to get to this point.

Veeam is an awesome product but things like this should not take this much effort to come to a reasonable conclusion. I understand the policy but with all policies nothing fits every customer every time and they need to be able to make exceptions for valid reasons without this much hassle.

[foggy]

Glad it is finally resolved. I'm sure your feedback is reasonable and accepted by our sales team. Thanks.