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Wondering About Maintenance Plus Insurance | 28 comments (28 topical) | Post A Comment
Additional Info[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#3)
by Anonymous User on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 11:12:07 AM PDT

I am in no way affiliated with Wonderware but I used to purchase and manage Wonderware licenses for my company. In the past when you purchased Wonderware you would get a sleeve of CD's that had every software module/option available. What this meant was you could load the software on as many PC's as you wanted. However..... You would also get a way to activate the software options that you had paid for. This used to be a hardware "dongle". Then went to a disk activation method. (I am not sure of the method Wonderware is using today.) The license was always tied to the software activation method, not the sleeve of CD's that had all the software on it. This way you could transfer the license to whatever PC you needed to have the software activated on. The problems came if the dongle or activation disk got lost or damaged. A damaged dongle was easy. Send it in for a free replacement. If the computer crashed with the activation key loaded on it you had to call Wonderware to reset the activation disk. Wonderware never failed to do this (and it was not an uncommon occurance). This trust by Wonderware I am sure led to some abuse by customers (i.e. hey I lost my activation, get it reset then load it on a second computer). That was a way for a customer to get a free license of the software. This software is not cheap. The full-blown development version was over $6k 3 years ago. In my opinion this clause is a way for Wonderware to protect themselves from abuse of their trust. In my past experience, if you had a long-time working relationship with Wonderware they would work with you to ensure you had working copies of the software you paid for. I have to believe if Wonderware has changed this policy it's because they were losing too much money from dishonest customers.

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It's not new[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#5)
by Anonymous User on Mon Feb 27, 2006 at 02:37:47 PM PDT

I'm a former WW employee. This is not a new policy. It's been in effect for at least five years. I never understood the need or reason for it. Having said that, I know of no instance of it having been enforced.

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Wondering About Maintenance Plus Insurance | 28 comments (28 topical) | Post A Comment
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