I certainly would appreciate some sage advice on a burning issue currently affecting my company.
I am a partner in a small IT firm that offers maintenance services to small- & mid-sized companies. In essence, if they don’t have an internal IT dept, they can outsource to us and we take care of their needs in terms of hardware and software maintenance and supply.
In the case of one particular company with which we have a contractual arrangement, we had – at the initial interview – been asked if we could support hardware, and basic sofware, in addition to a specialised accounting package they utilise. Eventually, they decided that they would retain the services of a previous company for that specialised software and only have us support hardware and regular software packages (office, anti-virus installations et al).
Upon audit assessment of their systems and infrastrucure, we made recommendations for changes and upgrades, to, of course, improve efficiency and performance.
In the case of the server in particular, we recommended an upgrade from NT4 server to 2k3server. As many of you will know, this would not only require hardware changes, but upgrades (or reconfiguration) also in software titles currently run on NT which may not work with the new generation OS. The database for the Accounting pkg previously mentioned is run on the server.
We, therefore, made it abundantly clear that if we upgraded the OS, the accounting pkg could/would be affected and at best would require reconfig. at worst – a totally new installation. We consulted with the support individual for the Accounting pkg and asked if the current version would work on win2k3 server, he said “yes” (maybe in hindsight we should have asked if it would work if we did an upgrade in place, as was the case)
I must note that in consideration of the client’s position, and in an effort to be helpful, we assured them that we would make every effort to have the accounting pkg working properly after we carried out the upgrade. We did the upgrade, and the software did not work (since we had been informed that it does work on 2k3 server, we opined that it would only need a reinstallation and reconfig.) Alas! we couldn’t get it to work, after about 12 hours of attempting to do so.
The company then called in a support person for the accounting package, he rectified the situation, and sent them a bill. A bill which they expect us to pay!!!
Their case: the software changes (and thus the bill) was as a result of the changes we had made (which is true) so we should pay for the support services.
Our case: We made recommendations with a caveat that there may be problems with a particular s/ware, s/ware we were told (in writing) that we would not have to support. You accepted these recommendations, and by doing so accept the fact that you may have to pay extra to have sofware support for your specialised accounting pkg.
Who should pay?
