[42] in Tooltime
Meeting w/Scopus reps 3/6
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barbara Goguen)
Thu Mar 7 14:45:48 1996
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 14:45:20 -0500
To: tooltime@MIT.EDU, wade@MIT.EDU, pakulat@MIT.EDU, paheff@MIT.EDU,
cec@MIT.EDU, leclair@MIT.EDU
From: goguen@MIT.EDU (Barbara Goguen)
Summary:
Looks as though we might be able to close a deal with them for $150K by the
end of March that would license us for 1 server (1 production & 1
development count as 1 total), 150 registered clients (client software can
be installed on 150 machines), 75 simultaneous/concurrent users,
DesignTEAM, InformTEAM and WebTEAM. Annual maintenace would be an
additional 25% of this, or $37.5K per year. These prices will only be
available to us if we have a PO and signed contract by March 31, with terms
net 30. Contract would need to be updated with necessary
concurrent/simultaneous definition changes among others, and a commitment
to work with us to get the SNS/Kerberos security piece working. Cec is a
master negotiator!
Detail:
Cec outlined 3 issues standing between us and a closed deal.
1. We have a level of discomfort regarding their responsiveness
2. We need to understand what we're buying and at what price - quotes have
been confusing and inconsistent to date
3. We need to know that they are truly committed to working with us to get
SQL*Net, SNS, Kerberos pieces working.
Responses:
1. Duchene blamed responsiveness problem on disconnect between Boston
office and technical folks in California. Talked about restructuring they
will be implementing between now and April 1 to address some of these
issues.
Should we sign on as customers, support process would be as follows:
We would have an 800 number to call, in operation 6am-6pm Pacific.
Submit calls via their Web site
4 levels of priority, standard escalation
We would escalate our issues to our sales rep (Campbell) or to the next
level (Duchene).
We could purchase extended support offerings.
When asked about local Oracle expertise, again Duchene responded that they
would be beefing up their knowledge in this area as so many of their
customers are Oracle installations now.
2. Talked through most recent "site" quote to understand what it covers.
1 Server means 1 development plus 1 production server. It doesn't
necessarily mean 1 application as we could conceivably have multiple
applications on a single server. If we wanted additional applications
running on separate servers, we would need to purchase additional server
licenses.
DesignTEAM and InformTEAM will get bundled together into Scopus Works,
their latest product release. Each are server products and assume 1
systems administrator using them at a time.
WebTEAM again would be a server product and wouldn't limit us to a
particular number of users so long as we had it running on only 1 server.
When asked what distinguishes their WebTEAM product from Oracle's Web
interface, Duchene responded we'd likely get better performance,
functionality, and easier maintenance out of their product. A layer of
Scopus is written in TCL which has strong links to Java. Then he finally
answered that Tim Guleri would have to give us specifics about benefits of
their WebTEAM over other web products.
TeleTEAM would be needed for telephony interface and for zephyr messaging
capability, but will not be bundled in first pass.
They also talked through other products in their product line: a contracts
module for keeping track of a hierarchy of accounts; Network management,
configuration management and version control products; Case-based reasoning
products from Inference such as CasePoint; QualityTEAM which is their
bug/defect tracking tool that prevents a case from being closed in
SupportTEAM until the bug is fixed. He described all of these as different
views into the same database.
Duchene asked questions regarding our potential needs for TeleTEAM, which
would be an additional cost of roughly 15K. Cec described our AT&T 5ESS
switch and AT&T Pinnacle ACD. They said their TeleTEAM product uses
Genesis as middleware to connect between switch and database, and he is not
sure how this would interface with our switch.
3. They want to commit to working with us on security issues, but need to
get better understanding of what we need from them prior to writing
anything into the contract.
Included in our purchase of Scopus is an open API.
Joan Beardsley, head of professional services might be able to help
determine how we might best work with their technical folks on this one.
Interesting notes:
Bruce Duchene has been with Scopus for 2 years; Dick Campbell for 6 months.
Company currently has 200 employees.
Revenues are 27 million this year up from 17 million last year.
They will be starting an Eastern region training facility sometime in next year.
Bruce was responsible for actually pulling together the conference call
that happened last week.
Stream, a local company, is first live user of WebTEAM.
80% of their revenues currently coming from Oracle platform installations.
Scopus' fiscal year ends in March, hence their hurry to close this deal.
Action Items:
Campbell/Duchene will have Joan Beardsley contact me within next couple of
days to schedule a visit here.
Campbell will email me list of local references by today (Teradyne, Stream,
NE Business, ComputerVision, ViewLogic).
Campbill will continue to try to get us a reference contact at Taligent.
Campbell/Duchene will put Paul in touch with Sandy Jaffe the contract
negotiator at Scopus' end.
I will work with conference call folks at our end to draft a paragraph of
what we need in terms of assurance/assistance from Scopus to implement
SNS/Kerberos piece.
-barbara
goguen@mit.edu
617-253-6135
