I sent the following email to success@itarian.com and haven’t heard a response after 5+ days so I also sent it to the forum admin that made the annoucement. (Please don’t turn this into a thread reagrding how crappy the transition to a paid service this has been, we all already know how we feel about it and it will just cause the thread to be locked)
RESPONSE: Crickets
(prices have been removed as they are reseller prices)
"Hi there,
I must first say that I am disappointed in Itarian for this move. Not so much the fact that the product now needs to be charged for (businesses need to survive and everyone needs to make money), but the fact that the whole premise of “For free. Forever” slogan has been completely dumped for this “Cost Neutral” slogan. By definition “Cost Neutral” means that the supplier of the product eats the cost if the service or project goes over a given value or budget. Is Itarian prepared to meet this challenge for everyone? Here is what that looks like to me based on the following
This spring I purchased redacted_cloud_based_av_service for multiple clients on 3 year terms ($CAD)
For true Cost Neutrality this means that I will not have to spend more than $zzzz until the spring of 2022 (for existing services/systems). Is Itarian willing to agree to this and provide RMM service until the spring of 2022 at which point I will migrate my users over to Comodo for their Antivirus? And in the mean time any new customers or computers that need antivirus installed will get a comodo product? Do we have a deal?"
I’m ont meaning to attach individuals but the following statements have been made on these forums…
Fatih has stated multiple times that sales will respond in a “timely manner”, timely to whom? Being ignored for almost a week only makes an already frustrated consumer base even more frustrated.
Fatih has said “We will not let down our users and customers” or something similar multiple times. I am sorry, but you ARE currently letting us down.
Arman has stated “No worries, PM me please so that I can make sure you are not charged until your multi year endpoint security licenses from your current provider runs out…we are here to help.” I have done so, yet no response further frustrating the consumer base.
I had high hopes based on previous forum responses to other users by Fatih and Arman but I was simply offered the canned pricing that they’re giving to all MSPs regardless of the fact that I am licensed already and commited to another product for the near future. The offer is a discounted rate per endpoint and they’ll start charging in January 2020. Since I have already commited pricing to my clients Itarian expects me to come up with thousands of dollars over the next few years to keep my customers on the Itarian system. Perhaps this is the standard sales “first offer” but I’ve already explained my situation to multiple Itarian staff. I responded via email directly to Zach asking if this was really what they mean by “working with thier customers” to find solutions but again, no response sigh. I guess the small fish just don’t carry any weight so its ok to ignore them which really leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
PM me you contact details and I’ll get in touch to help.
We often find the “success” team are not great at success, and this is where good distributors like us get involved.
October 17th: Sent email to sucess as requested. <— As of October 31st, no response
Oct 21: PM to Arman <— As of October 31st, no response
Oct. 22 - Itarian-Zach in response to my forum post: “Please PM with your email address or email me at zach.desaulniers@itarian.com” <---- I replied Oct. 22. As of October 31st, no response
Oct 25 - Rahsonm PM to me in response to my forum post: “Hey I would like let you know I can be your point of contact from here. More than happy to help” ← I replied Oct 25
Oct 28 - Rahsonm PM: “I have escalated this to Arman and he will reach out to you. We will make sure you are taken care of. Could you please send me the best email address for you?” <— replied Oct 28. As of October 31st, no response
Oct 29 - Elif Ayhan Kurt: Hello @terry.r, Sorry for the late response, our success team will reach you as soon as possible. <— No response a of yet.
Lets see how many more Itarian staff we can loop in. Why is this so hard?
Since I’ve been vocal about the communication problem I also need to be vocal when it has been resolved. I finally received word from Arman in response to my email on October 21st. While I don’t find the delay to be acceptable it appears that the result will be.
I got an email today asking if I had any questions, so they might move my way soon, but @StrobeTech got back with me with a matter of a couple hours, if not minutes.
Yea, zach is no longer with company and Arman has also not responded after mentioning that zach is no longer with the company.
Come on iTarian!! I love(d)? the platform, but now i’m not really enjoying the poor decisions, lack of community awareness, involvement, preparedness, and lack of transparency.
Where is the new SLA? How about a contract with the special terms you’re offering. This is the worst process I have ever had to deal with, and I don’t want to leave iTarian, much like the others who are upset with these new changes.
Get it together!!! Our MSP depends on our service and preparedness, this is so disappointing!!!
You don’t want everyone going to a social media platform to complain, and leave bad reviews, do you?!
The platform is overall workable even with its problems, but this extra BS is just insane, and leaving a bad mark in the tech industry for Comodo / iTarian!
I guess I’ll have to wait for StrobeTech to get to me, but really, this is very poor PR.
I can’t believe this is the common, yea, it’s normal, and XYZ / StrobeTech, who are better will handle it… that’s not even iTarian, it’s a distributor.
At the end of the day, if/when StrobeTech, the only “good distributer” I’ve seen responding gets burned, and decides to leave… What will the rest of us do?!
iTarian needs to make this right! FFS it’s not a free service anymore!!! It needs to act like it!
Still no response… This is how amazing things start to disappear… Please keep it together iTarian / Comodo help us stay here! No one really wants to leave!
I feel your pain!! I really hope I don’t go through the same issues once they start charging. I’ve been told a note has been put on my account but that is all. Hopefully everyone who knows what is going on is still around in January when they start charging.
Amazing seeing as I was granted at least 100 free endpoints by the now no longer with them Zach… Maybe he saw the writing on the wall and headed for greener grass…
I’m sorry to hear your experience and will see if I can get an explanation to all this for you all.
In the meantime, if you need help or pricing feel free to contact me via our website (www.strobe-it.co.uk) or PM on here. Website best as updates from here do not always alert us.
My name is Joe and have recently been on-boarded as a Partner Success Manager with Itarian. First and foremost I would like to apologize for the delays in responses on behalf of the team but I can ensure you that moving forward that will no longer be the case. I am very responsive and will work diligently in assisting every one of you with my team. We appreciate your patience and support!
I will be going through the forum and emails with my partner Alex to provide as much support that is needed.
Like the OP, I’m patently waiting for responses from iTarian regarding my emails to continue our relationship after the 1st of the year… and responses to my other recent posts…
This is how amazing things start to disappear… Please keep it together iTarian / Comodo help us stay here! No one really wants to leave!