LIcensiing nightmare

[grubat]

I am a technician with over 20 years supporting desktop and server platforms.  I am a new employee to Enbridge Energy.  My sphere of influence includes about 50 different AutoDesk licenses most of which are in disarray.  My vendor has been CDW, but I am looking at other options.  Recently I asked for a quote for a renewal of subscriptions for about 24 products. The quote was sent to another person in our corporation.  By the time I tracked it down the 45 day grace period was up, and I was hit with $2800 in fees for a lapsed subscription.  The problem was that the tech I replaced had registered the software to his e-mail address.  Since he is gone, we had no notification that the subscription was expiring.  I have since implemented a generic e-mail account for all our techs to use when registering software. However it seems very wrong that I cannot get in contact with a person at Autodesk to talk to about this.  Autodesk is the worst company I have dealt with for licensing complexities and difficulty in renewal. If there were a better product I would force a change.  I don’t have a clear understanding of what they want!  It is more difficult to understand their licensing than any other company I have done business with.  Their tracking is hit and miss.  For instance, I can be upgrading a machine to a new version, so I look at the serial number on the users computer, call my vendor and give them that serial number.  They have to call and check the serial number and then come back with a quote.  I place an order with their quote, and receive the software.  I go to install the upgrade and when I get to activation it fails.  I call Autodesk and they say that the original serial number has already been used to upgrade……..

How can this happen?  It has, twice in three months…..   No one at AutoDesk has been any help so far.  Support is poor and slow.  Overall I am shocked that they make money.

[pendean]

CDW is a retail outlet, online, but still a retail outlet. Kind of like shopping at Walmart. Nuff said.

Contact an Authorized reseller in your area, someone local or at least regional, with a warm body, name and a phone number, with a supervising manager: they are listed in your yellow pages if you live in a major metro area. You can also look them up online at:

www.autodesk.com/reseller

if you come across more than one choice, post back with your options and I am sure someone will help recommend one over the other. Never settle for a retailer with an 800 number and no direct contact to a single assigned-to-you real person.

You also need to develop a better internal license-tracking method: assigning an email to one employee, there or moved-on, is really your mistake to fix and no one else. Most companies never respond to ".. he doesn't work here anymore, send it all to me..." type requests, it's just not done.

[grubat]

All your comments are true, and I am working on it.

That however does not remove the burden of lousy support and contact options for Autodesk.

I repeat, my mistakes I own, and will resolve.

Autodesk has horrendous policies and support.  Fix that.

[DarrenP]

their phone tech support is mostly handled through reseller channels

i would try to contact a reseller for tech support

the licensing is very confusing at times i do agree with that

[TravisNave]

Darren is right.  You want to purchase your software from a Value-Added Reseller.  When you purchase with a VAR, you will work with a sales person that will keep you informed of Subscription updates, changes, upgrade deals, etc.  And you will have access to a higher level of service and support that you would expect from a leading software vendor as Autodesk. 

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/partner/search?id=1088201&siteID=123112