Is this standard business practice?

[davemitch]

We are a small/medium sized manufacturer of highly engineered aerospace products (amongst other systems). We currently use ANSYS as our FEA software package, which we have been doing for the last five or so years. Due to the current economy, we had to forgo the annual maintenance agreement to reduce our costs.

We recently had one of our engineer's machine die on us and needed to install the software on a new system. The ANSYS package requires that we get a software license key from them, and when we contacted them and our reseller, we were told we needed to pay $2,000.00 in administrative fees. They contend that our license agreement says that any change to "the network" requires the payment of an administration fee, while the license agreement states that they must provide us with License Keys and makes no mention of an administration fee in return for the keys.

ANSYS states that it is a "policy" but this is the first we have ever heard of it. There is no mention of it in the license agreement except where it talks about moving a workstation to another network (which we are not doing).
Here are my questions:

1- Given that we have spent of $160k for this software and it's maintenance, is it reasonable to expect that we pay for a license key for a product we have already purchased a license to?

2- Is this "standard" industry practice?

3- Does anyone know of any good alternative products to ANSYS and if there is an existing migration/conversion utility?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I am not happy about this situation as you could probably appreciate.

Thanks.

 

[tomirvine]

I recommend that you consider NE/Nastran by Noran Engineering.

I use it for analyzing launch vehicles and satellites. The analyses including modal, frequency response, buckling, and static loads.

An individual NE/Nastran license cost about $10K. This includes a version of FEMAP for pre and post-processing.

Furthermore, David and Katarina Weinberg of Noran provide good customer support and service.

Tom Irvine

http://www.vibrationdata.com

 

[swallow]

This is definitely not "standard" industry practice. I'm using ABAQUS for years and I haven't experienced something like this.
ABAQUS is at least as powerful as ANSYS. I don't know of any conversion utility from ANSYS to ABAQUS. The best would be to talk with the people from the next ABAQUS office:

http://www.abaqus.com

Rudolf

 

[68roadrunner]

No - this is not standard business practice. I have used ANSYS for quite a while and have never seen or heard of gouging like this. I suggest to explain that you can take your next contract elsewhere. ANSYS is well-liked for certain reasons (not important here) but you can always go to NASTRAN.

 

[brad]

To my understanding, changing a license server is indeed a "change to the network". I'm afraid they may be acting to the letter of the contract, though certainly not to the spirit of the agreement. If I were in that business manager's shoes I think I would look at the bigger picture and give you the new key. License keys amount to about 5 minutes of work for an administrative person. At that rate, I'd like that administrative job! This sounds like gouging, even if it is per the agreement.

Brad

 

[tld23]

As you were out of maintenance I think an admin fee is reasonable, but $2000 is way too high. I suspect this is a punitive measure to "encourage" you to go back on maintenance. Go back and talk to ANSYS, If it means loosing your 'potential' future custom I suspect they would wave or reduce the fee.

Changing FEA systems can cause substantial problems with:
* New software costs
* Staff in efficiency during any changeover
* Incompatibility of model files
* The potential need to access archived files
(particularly important in the aerospace industry)

Such a change will cost much much more then the $2000 that ANSYS are trying to charge. Make any changes based on a (costed) technical need.



TERRY

 

[GSC]

I agree with brad in terms of that changing the license server is a change to the network, however charging you for administration fee after an incidental hardware failure is completely insane, and unacceptable. Even if it is stated in the license agreement, the business manager should act as usual in practice - helping you out with a new license key.

-Ask which hardware the ansys license is connected to. You may temporarily put back that hardware into your system if its not short circuited.

-Ask for a temporary license untill you find a solution. Don't accept their arguments. You already paid for the license.

-Tell them that in focus of the license charge you will assess whether Ansys has indirectly caused the hardware failure.

-Frequent upgrade of hardware is necessary these days. Do they also charge you for this administration fee if you upgrade your PC? That would be nonsense.

gsc

 

[bjpil]

FYI, I also had a disagreement with a software supplier but was able to solve the problem by suggesting that I may have to post their software problems on a forum to see if anyone else was having problems and might help. For some reason they decided to be more helpful and came out to our company and helped us resolve the problem. BTW it was a software issue that they knew about. You probably have already cost ANSYS more than $2000 by posting this. It is too bad that they did not see this and try to help you initially. Good luck, you've at least given me another question to ask software supplier before I buy.

BJP

 

[davemitch]

Thanks for all your replies and input. There is a significant issue with their license agreement, as there is no clear definition of what a "network" is. They decided to give us the license key without charging an administrative fee, but it wasn't until after I spent alot of time and aggravation convincing them that we had a valid argument. I can understand their need to maintain license keys because it is valueable software, but not at our expense and certainly not at those prices.

Thanks again for your input, I will be more careful with the licensing when we buy software in the future.

 

[jxcampbell]

Good Morning All,

I would like to add a comment to this discussion (not meaning to beat a dead horse), but I have dealt with a number of software & hardware companies & it is standard for them to request an administrative fee for such services. My experience has shown that by insisting that the fee be waived usually will get results.

As consumers of a product that has had flat to falling revenue we are in a position to ask that such fees to be waived. If your rep. has a problem do not hesitate to talk with the regional manager or VP & they will be more than willing to help rather than have an unhappy customer that begins to look for a replacement product.

One last note, I recently was in the market to purchase FEA software & the local ANSYS VAR would not allow a 30/60 day trail period. I was forced to spent a day at their office attempting first to understand the pre- & post-processor to be able input my test models, then creating the test models & running them. I was unable to get this work done in one day & felt put out by ANSYS that they would force me to be away from my office additionally to complete my evaluation. So I can understand the frustration you felt in your initial dealing with ANSYS in your situation. I have since purchased another product & though I have great respect for their product I would not recommend them because of some of their business practices.

Good luck in your analysis,

John C.

 

[jwsigler]

I ran into the same problem that Dave did when my motherboard went south and it contains the ethernet card for the computer. From what I can figure out, ANSYS's license is tied to the ethernet card's MAC address and to an ID off of the primary hard drive. (The MAC address I am sure of, the harddrive ID I have not verified yet). ANSYS wants $1000 from me for a new license, but we are still fighting over the issue. So far they have issued me two temporary 14 day licenses, each one taking the same amount of their clerk's time to issue as a single permanent license. When I wrote to their salesperson, who "promised to take care of me if I had any problems" and said she did not keep her work and that I would be telling others, the ANSYS corporate attorney wrote back accusing me of threatening and harrassing their employee. He goes on to says he will contact the proper law enforcement authorities. I did not know that telling salespeople that their word is no good and that I will be telling others, was a crime.

While I have used ANSYS since 1980 while working for large defense contractors, I am very sorry that I purchased their software now thaqt I am running my own business. By the way, I still plan on telling others what poor customer service ANSYS provides.

 

[ThetaJC]

I agree w/ the general consensus. Ansys has lousy customer support in my opinion based on my experience and a legal threat such as that was ridiculous. Sounds like it was some time ago, however, I would have suggested seeking legal council in that case. The only threats that seemed to be made were by the Ansys legal team.

 

[oldcser]

No one needs to give in to ANSYS's poor customer service policies. If you have a machine that broke, you just build or buy a new one, configure it correctly, and then load your old license and continue working. If you have a valid paid-up license, you simply need to build a computer to match your "designated network" and load your license onto that machine. This is a simple practice that IT professionals have been doing for years. There is nothing unethical or illegal about it. We routinely build machines to be exact copies so we can switch them in and out of a network without the network even knowing that the machines have been switched. The actual procedure would be slightly different for each case, but it should not take you longer than 10 minutes to bring your license back up. Email me if you need help and I can walk you through the process. I travel a lot so I do not get to check my email as often as most people, but I get to it at least every couple of days so bear with me. No one should give in to these strong arm tactics. When you pay $12k or more for a software license you should not be held up for more money when an "act of god" disables your system. This attitude of ANSYS's is inexcusable.

 

[Helcul]

When you spent $160k, did you buy the software+maintenance or was it a software lease+maintenance? It makes a difference! If you bought the software, you would have a stronger argument to having ANSYS provide you with license keys forever.

Are you dealing with ANSYS directly or a reseller? If there are a lot of unwritten policies take it as an opportunity to negotiate...you never know what kind of deal you can work out.

Are you using a very old version of ANSYS that uses Elan licenses? or are you using FlexLM licenses? By default FlexLM keys are tied to the Ethernet ID which can't be duped. You can also tie the keys to the CPU or harddrive. Have you tried moving the old Ethernet card to a new computer and checking whether the Host ID is unchanged?

There are lots of other FEA codes. All have there strenths and weaknesses. ANSYS is generally a good deal but there are plenty of alternative that run from $5k to $50k.

 

[jwsigler]

I want to thank Oldscer for his help. The instructions you sent me were great and I got my license back up and running in less than 10 minutes. It is a shame that the ANSYS people do not make a similar effort to help their customers. At least I now know that regardless of what ill fate befalls my computer, I will be able to bring my license back up on a replacement machine and not have to pay ANSYS their rediculous fee. Thanks again for the excellent help.