Black Friday/Cyber Monday Discount?

[DarkKnyte]

Sky-knight, your posts are always quick, helpful, informative, and often entertaining.

Thank you for all your contributions!

@tcurtis: I think a company employee ignoring a customer's question, then encouraging a non-employee's snarky forum responses to your other (potential) customers is probably not a good look. That said, it's pretty clear Untangle benefits from Sky-knight's unpaid forum support of your customers, so maybe throwing him a bone once in a while makes you feel better about that.

While commercial clients are always going to be the bread and butter of I.T., there is no reason to treat individuals/home customers with any amount of disdain for asking a question as simple as 'Will you, like a huge majority of other companies that sell things, be giving a discount on what is essentially a national discount day?'.

A polite alternative could have been: 'Drmilo, we already offer what we think is a large discount, and a great deal for our home users every day. We hope you give us a try.' Actual good customer service might have looked like: 'Drmilo, we don't offer a black friday discount, but we sure do appreciate your interest in our product and your participation on our forum. Here's a 10% discount code off 1yr of Home Pro for you stopping by and saying hello. We hope you enjoy our product.'

Would either of those really have been that hard for you, @tcurtis? It cost's nothing to be polite & only 10% in a minor subscription discount that could have had a much higher revenue potential down the road by generating good will for your product & customer service.

Since I do (try) to advertise & resell your products to my customers, maybe my opinion matters? Something for me to think about, while I grapple with the internal forces asking me why I bother to even try.

@sky-knight You are making a false equivalence. While the software product might be the same, the usage patterns and support expectations vary dramatically between commercial and home users. I'd also venture a guess and say that Untangle's support availability & priority between a $2k/yr customer and a $50/yr customer are also completely different. So, it's not really an 87% discount off the same product, is it?

@Drmilo, I think it's fair to say that most companies offering black friday or cyber monday discounts will be advertising them via their newsletters, blogs, or social media accounts. If you do not see anything advertised in those places, it's likely there is no discount to be had. Shame, as BF sales are actually big revenue drivers for companies that know how to properly take advantage of them. That's why so many companies participate. Though I'm sure with the treatment you received on the forum, you are probably already exploring alternatives.

[drmilo]

Outstanding post and I too thought it was shocking that tcurtis liked a snarky response and was a little offended by an employee's action until I realized that Sky post over 150 responses a month and it is clear there is no intention to drive consumer adoption.

I agree that a 300% increase in a consumer product is not the same as an 87% discount off an enterprise solution. The home does not include live support etc. I don't blame Sky for his response as he makes a living by selling Untangle and hardware and sure my request offended him. Not the intent as I sincerely saw it as a 300% increase to maintain wan balancer and a product I literally just installed weeks ago.

In reading the many responses it appears that the $50 is the way to go. It appears Sky definitely knows what he is talking about and piecing together a set of response for home use there is limited benefit from IPS, threat prevention (IP/Lateral movement) and virus has huge limitations if you are not using SSL. I watched the tech talk on IPS and they don't recommend using it unless you have specific threats and can manage on a routine basis.

The following appears to be a better set up
1. HomePro $50 annual
2. End user protection
A Antivirus/Malware
a. Bitdefender - BlackFriday(BF) sell $23 a year for 5 devices
b. or MalwareBytes 50% BF $42 for 5 devices
c or other BF sale
C AdGuard BF sell or SocialStack under $30 for Ad blocking
D Client VPN BF 50% on many versions with PIA being a very popular

So for $150 annually you would miss out on threat protection, but you have end user, superior ad blocking and client VPN. If bang for your consumer buck is of any importance in the world of tradeoffs this might be a better set of solutions.

There are not any YouTube Untangle Tech Talks on Threat Protection and general consensus amongst the forum it appears to add very little to no benefit in home environment. Sky even referenced the naming is misleading and more of a lateral movement detection. Utilizing firewall rules, limited to no open ports with geoblocking of those ports, vlans and end user protection applications.

Nothing in this post is intended to drive snarky comments and only intended to share what I have pieced together.

[sky-knight]

Home Protect Plus + Support = $366 / year
Complete 150 devices = $2700 / year

HPP + Support = 86.44% less money than complete. Same product different labeling.

So either home users got a sweet deal, or corporate customers are getting ripped off. And you make the mistake of thinking I'm happy about this... I'm very much NOT.

P.S. If you're paying for 3rd party AV in 2020 you're wasting money, I don't even use 3rd party AV for businesses anymore. The only time I do is when the business requires reporting of AV effectiveness.

[Sam Graf]

HPP + Support = 86.44% less money than complete. Same product different labeling.

This is one place where a disconnect in the conversation is happening. I don't know that it can be corrected, because it is a durable difference.

"Same product different labeling" conflates product and licensing in an argument for proof of value, I think. Like trying to compare dissimilar typed variables. I would say "Same product different licensing" if I were going to say anything; a noncommercial license versus the for-profit commercial license.

For what it's worth.

[sky-knight]

This is one place where a disconnect in the conversation is happening. I don't know that it can be corrected, because it is a durable difference.

"Same product different labeling" conflates product and licensing in an argument for proof of value, I think. Like trying to compare dissimilar typed variables. I would say "Same product different licensing" if I were going to say anything; a noncommercial license versus the for-profit commercial license.

For what it's worth.

The problem is the support costs are the same, and the noncommercial use limits are unenforceable. But you do at least understand the problem, my argument is that home is too cheap, and commercial is too expensive. Untangle must also think commercial is too expensive, otherwise they'd not grant such huge discounts to nonprofits, and even more to government entities.

I'd rather pricing follow the KISS principle, and we'd have one price for one product. Instead we have all this marginal insanity going on, and it's distracting as well as degrading.

And we haven't even gotten into the anti-competitive mess that's created by Untangle selling direct, and telling partners to piss off for some products but not others.

[Sam Graf]

I'd rather pricing follow the KISS principle, and we'd have one price for one product. Instead we have all this marginal insanity going on, and it's distracting as well as degrading.

And one platform+apps to rule them all.

[drmilo]

I use a VM that refreshes each night to avoid issues. I also have EDR installed, but pointing out for the consumer there are options. If you read Untangles recommendations they include end user AV. Does Untangle offer client side VPN for surfing the web? I really haven’t found all the options.

[mikeyscott]

I agree Untangle commercial is expensive, particularly if you're outside of the US. I don't know a single corp organisation using Untangle and neither would I recommend it based on it's pricing structure.

[DarkKnyte]

The problem is the support costs are the same, and the noncommercial use limits are unenforceable. But you do at least understand the problem, my argument is that home is too cheap, and commercial is too expensive. Untangle must also think commercial is too expensive, otherwise they'd not grant such huge discounts to nonprofits, and even more to government entities.

I'd rather pricing follow the KISS principle, and we'd have one price for one product. Instead we have all this marginal insanity going on, and it's distracting as well as degrading.

And we haven't even gotten into the anti-competitive mess that's created by Untangle selling direct, and telling partners to piss off for some products but not others.

Except they aren't the same, and I think you know that. Home users are typically content with reaching out on a forum or just filing a support ticket and waiting sometime for a response. Commercial users want someone to answer the phone right away when their VPN isn't working. The product seeing 20-100 people using it every day is more likely, IMO to experience a higher rate of spontaneous support requests, and frequent requests during upgrades vs the home user likely to see high support needs during install and tapering off dramatically over time unless Untangle releases a botched update.

How much do you think home users are willing to pay for a firewall? The ones that are willing to spend any money on it all is already a tiny market. You raise the price on it any more, and you will kill that small market as it is. As it is, you are already seeing people give pushback over the licensing changes and I expect that will get worse as more home users discover the changes.

With regards to Untangle being anti-competitive by selling direct, how does *more* people selling something make it *less* competitive? I would argue that the people that buy it direct were never going to be your customers to begin with, and protecting dealer sales channels (profits) at the expense of people capable of buying their own firewalls is actually anti-competitive & anti-consumer. Tesla seems to be doing exceptionally well, and they eschew the typical car dealer bullshit. If you need Untangle to refuse to sell direct in order for you to make money, maybe you don't really add a whole lot of value to the purchase.

[Sam Graf]

How much do you think home users are willing to pay for a firewall? The ones that are willing to spend any money on it all is already a tiny market. You raise the price on it any more, and you will kill that small market as it is. As it is, you are already seeing people give pushback over the licensing changes and I expect that will get worse as more home users discover the changes.

Fair points. Still, it saddens me that what began as a very generous offer by Untangle to allow existing NGFW customers and users and home network security enthusiasts an opportunity to use the product at home under a dedicated license has come to this. The spirit of the thing has changed, deteriorated. I don't think Untangle alone are responsible for that change, but I do think they have contributed meaningfully to it. And now, here we are.