Questions about licensing?

[StrobeTech]

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! There still seems be some slight confusion with the free licensing. In short we are no longer offering free infinity licenses for RMM or security. Instead we are offering the first 50 licenses for free with RMM only. Once you’re at 50+ you will be invoiced for the full amount.

Security is not included in the first 50 devices and does require a paid license no matter the end point count with AV.

If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me via email Joseph.Jaghab@itarian.com for MSP security + RMM pricing!

I will do my best in responding to your inquires, today is my Bday ???? and I won’t be by my e-mail too much through out the day. Do expect responses by Monday.

Just to check ItarianJoe can you confirm if this is 0-49 free or 0-50 free as on our distribution sheet and guide to distribute we were given the first bracket at 50-99 which would suggest 50 and 51st licenses make the entire lot chargeable.

[StrobeTech]

Happy belated birthday ItarianJoe !

Thanks so much for your time, energy, and effort in replying to my many posts and trying to reach out, I sincerely appreciate it.

There's no need for us to schedule a call to chat, since there is no guarantee you can provide about your product that I would trust at this point.
I won't be spending another minute "learning" (read: troubleshooting, researching, asking, and generally beta testing) your platform since you're now charging me to do so and I have no way of knowing if next month we'll only have 25 free licenses, followed the month after by "free licenses just don't really fit our business model anymore".

I have no "sunk cost" bias, I have no trouble in walking away from the hundreds of hours invested in this platform in education, custom script and deployment development, onboarding documentation, etc when costs are turned up. This is always an implied risk when trying something new! Oh well.

I would have hoped you could have found a more modern profit model for your platform, such as data mining / telemetry or something similar for those who want to stay on a freemium tier.
In what is now a new decade, this model has been well developed for years and is so obvious, and what might have dissuaded you from going this route is entirely beyond me.
Just know that for every rare person who is further wasting their time (such as my self) being vocal on the forums, I suppose out of sentiment, there are so many more dying offline from this.

In my IT/MSP network on the west coast, many people were excited about a freemium MSP platform and it made so much sense with the older MSP dinosaurs which might not be agile enough / to put forward an offering like this (e.g. SolarWinds et al). Many of them where using C1, parts of it, or had integrated into their deployments on some level.
Now the general feeling has gone from shock and people saying "I knew it", to hilarity and trying to figure out what business strategy led to this conclusion.
On the upside, from my personal (optimistic) perspective. I feel we're already moving into the final "stage of grief", that of "acceptance and hope", hope for a future start-up or open source project to see the mistakes made here and succeed where there has been failure, capturing this sector of the market since all the tools are already out there and available just wanting some core, integration, and a UI.

Hi RoninMedia

A very well constructed and written way of putting this.
We are an MSP like you and a distributor for Comodo/ITarian.

I know and understand the official line for overheads and costs; and it is true and explains why some of the releases have been a little broken or not finished which has not helped the platform grow or provide to its full potential.

Something I also personally believe is that due to the lack of AV license enforcement being built in people were not buying it and just deploying it for free to their clients. As the Comodo AV was designed to help fund the ITarian RMM system (original called C1), and in turn meant they were loosing on both fronts.

If you sell the AV then you get the RMM for free; and coming soon will be a new store to purchase other systems which will also help fund the RMM platform allowing you to keep your setup free.

I know this is not ease to balance and not everyone is wanting to use the AV but investment in the system will only make it better; and on the RMM front this is moving faster and better than the already paid competition with a much smaller price tag.

[CompuWhizzToo]

Free speech is, just we need to get away from the constant bashing and be productive

With respect Robin, allowing critical comments shows they have confidence in their platform, the worst part for me was the blind banning of my previous forum account without any explanation and the Unapproving of comments again blindly with no record of the mod or staff member who did it, not the norm on any forum I have ever been on.

I understand you are heavily invested in the product but alas I cannot recommend anyone to place their trust in a platform or company who operates in such a deceitful and secretive manner.

[StrobeTech]

With respect Robin, allowing critical comments shows they have confidence in their platform, the worst part for me was the blind banning of my previous forum account without any explanation and the Unapproving of comments again blindly with no record of the mod or staff member who did it, not the norm on any forum I have ever been on.

I understand you are heavily invested in the product but alas I cannot recommend anyone to place their trust in a platform or company who operates in such a deceitful and secretive manner.

I understand what you are saying, but also at the same time they have rules on the forums etc to make sure it is as constructive as possible and helpful for all.

We are heavily invested for sure, and glad they allow us to contribute as much as coming from a previous company that we had major issues with and got out money back from after signing a disclaimer not to highlight their loop holes and issues that stops the system from working. They were not interested in solving it, just wanted to pay me off and shut me up; Comodo/ITarian welcome us and want us to help provided we do it in the right way.

melih and the team I'm sure will agree I can be very vocal with issues for us and our MSPs we distribute to.

[CompuWhizzToo]

I understand what you are saying, but also at the same time they have rules on the forums etc to make sure it is as constructive as possible and helpful for all.

We are heavily invested for sure, and glad they allow us to contribute as much as coming from a previous company that we had major issues with and got out money back from after signing a disclaimer not to highlight their loop holes and issues that stops the system from working. They were not interested in solving it, just wanted to pay me off and shut me up; Comodo/ITarian welcome us and want us to help provided we do it in the right way.

melih and the team I'm sure will agree I can be very vocal with issues for us and our MSPs we distribute to.

I emailed on the instruction of Joe one of their head honchos and have up to today heard absolutely nothing. They treat clients with contempt and demonstrate regularly their lack of professionalism

[StrobeTech]

I emailed on the instruction of Joe one of their head honchos and have up to today heard absolutely nothing. They treat clients with contempt and demonstrate regularly their lack of professionalism

What do you want to know??

Is it pricing etc you need as we can help with that?

[CompuWhizzToo]

Thanks Robin.

I requested to know where they store the data about my clients and made a GDPR request which was completely ignored.

Not sure that's something you can help with.

Anyhow these comments will most likely be anonymously blocked by morning but at least you have seen them.

[StrobeTech]

Thanks Robin.

I requested to know where they store the data about my clients and made a GDPR request which was completely ignored.

Not sure that's something you can help with.

Anyhow these comments will most likely be anonymously blocked by morning but at least you have seen them.

They do have EU and US data centres; and the you chose this when you setup your account. I believe support can help move from one to the other if needed as well.

I cannot say for sure were the data is located exactly and no SaaS system will ever tell you this as opens the data centres for physical attack.
I know they do take this seriously; so I would expect to hear back from someone about this soon.

[ItarianJoe]

Just to check ItarianJoe can you confirm if this is 0-49 free or 0-50 free as on our distribution sheet and guide to distribute we were given the first bracket at 50-99 which would suggest 50 and 51st licenses make the entire lot chargeable.

StrobeTech 0-50 are free as long as there is no CCC client installed on those devices. Once you're 50+ devices on the platform you will be invoiced for the full amount including the original 50 devices.

[ItarianJoe]

I emailed on the instruction of Joe one of their head honchos and have up to today heard absolutely nothing. They treat clients with contempt and demonstrate regularly their lack of professionalism

Compuwhizz what time did you email me today? I am sorry if may not have seen it yet? Not sure im pretty good with my emails. None the less i treat everyone with respect and professionalism. Your last email to me was one 12/31 according to my records.

[StrobeTech]

StrobeTech 0-50 are free as long as there is no CCC client installed on those devices. Once you're 50+ devices on the platform you will be invoiced for the full amount including the original 50 devices.

Hi ItarianJoe

My mistake; I'll make sure my documents and price lists reflect the correct starting bracket of 51 upwards.

Thanks

[CompuWhizzToo]

Compuwhizz what time did you email me today? I am sorry if may not have seen it yet? Not sure im pretty good with my emails. None the less i treat everyone with respect and professionalism. Your last email to me was one 12/31 according to my records.

Apologies Joe, I confused you with your colleague Adam IIRC and he said to email a member of management and provided me their email address, so to clarify I did not email yourself!

Joe you have been the consummate professional, alas those running this forum and your management team fall well under the standard required in a security company.

[CompuWhizzToo]

StrobeTech 0-50 are free as long as there is no CCC client installed on those devices. Once you're 50+ devices on the platform you will be invoiced for the full amount including the original 50 devices.

Hold on a second....

When the bait and switch was enforced on users as part of the settling of the dust so to speak they offered existing users 100 free clients forever which I emailed success for and was granted, now are you telling me that has changed again???

This story just goes on and on!

[ItarianJoe]

Hold on a second....

When the bait and switch was enforced on users as part of the settling of the dust so to speak they offered existing users 100 free clients forever which I emailed success for and was granted, now are you telling me that has changed again???

This story just goes on and on!

100 free users for life? That’s news to me, you know my email address. Please contact me there.

[StrobeTech]

There was a vote in the forum if I remember correctly that had the option of 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 and 90 something % said 50 and that is what we have.

I also believe one comment on the vote said can we make it 100 but nothing official was offered or discussed for 100 free licenses.