Morally and Ethical usage of trial licensed program
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So here is my scenario... I have the need for an inventory application, PDQ, SW, Lansweeper, etc, for about 1-2 months. Problem that arise is the usage does not justify the price tag that come with it. I am perfectly fine with free version of these applications, but for 2 months I want to have all features unlocked for ease of use.
Therefore I have 2 questions:
1st question: How would you approach your boss to approve the purchase of the license when the usage is very low. These licenses are yearly subscription.
2nd question: Would you run the inventory application on a virtual machine..say virtual box..scrap it after the first trial and reinstall everything again to use the same trial the second time.Does it hurt or increase the work load if I use free version? not much. probably going to cost me couple of hours after hours for a month more than what I wanted to.
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Using a trial in production beyond its intended trial period kinda flies in the face of the licensing agreement, and I would think you would be technically violating it by using it as you describe above.
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PDQ will save you money in the long run. It's reasonably priced and will save man hours.
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@LAH3385 said:
So here is my scenario... I have the need for an inventory application, PDQ, SW, Lansweeper, etc, for about 1-2 months. Problem that arise is the usage does not justify the price tag that come with it.
Just because you only use it once or twice doesn't mean it's not totally worth the price they charge. Also the ability to use their built in reporting tools afterwards is useful too.
If you had to visit each computer manually and collect the information, how much time would that take? That's how you justify the cost.
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@Dashrender said:
@LAH3385 said:
So here is my scenario... I have the need for an inventory application, PDQ, SW, Lansweeper, etc, for about 1-2 months. Problem that arise is the usage does not justify the price tag that come with it.
Just because you only use it once or twice doesn't mean it's not totally worth the price they charge. Also the ability to use their built in reporting tools afterwards is useful too.
If you had to visit each computer manually and collect the information, how much time would that take? That's how you justify the cost.
And it would take you that long EVERY time to collect the information, and put it together in a nice and pretty report with lots of room for human error.
PDQ would reduce both the time it takes to collect that information and the time required to accurately produce such a report.
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Do you guys use PDQ free, Pro, or enterprise for your production environment?
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@LAH3385 said:
Do you guys use PDQ free, Pro, or enterprise for your production environment?
We don't use PDQ here, but I have used the free one in the past.
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@dafyre said:
@LAH3385 said:
Do you guys use PDQ free, Pro, or enterprise for your production environment?
We don't use PDQ here, but I have used the free one in the past.
what do you use for inventory?
I am using trial for PDQ inventory and trial for Lansweeper. Got to say they are awesome. Really want to keep it forever.
@Dashrender said:
@LAH3385 said:
So here is my scenario... I have the need for an inventory application, PDQ, SW, Lansweeper, etc, for about 1-2 months. Problem that arise is the usage does not justify the price tag that come with it.
Just because you only use it once or twice doesn't mean it's not totally worth the price they charge. Also the ability to use their built in reporting tools afterwards is useful too.
If you had to visit each computer manually and collect the information, how much time would that take? That's how you justify the cost.
I don't know.. problably 60-80 hours of work after hours for 2 months period
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@LAH3385 said:
I don't know.. problably 60-80 hours of work after hours for 2 months period
you mean 60-80 per week for 8 weeks? or 420 - 640 hours? Well, how much are you paid? (don't post that) times those hours tells you the value of that product for a starter. then add in the ability to run reports in their tools, etc, that has additional value.
So instead of paying you that money to do that manually, probably meaning you can't work on anything else for 8 weeks, they can buy this product and you can do this AND work on other projects during that time.
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@LAH3385 said:
@dafyre said:
@LAH3385 said:
Do you guys use PDQ free, Pro, or enterprise for your production environment?
We don't use PDQ here, but I have used the free one in the past.
what do you use for inventory?
I am using trial for PDQ inventory and trial for Lansweeper. Got to say they are awesome. Really want to keep it forever.
@Dashrender said:
@LAH3385 said:
So here is my scenario... I have the need for an inventory application, PDQ, SW, Lansweeper, etc, for about 1-2 months. Problem that arise is the usage does not justify the price tag that come with it.
Just because you only use it once or twice doesn't mean it's not totally worth the price they charge. Also the ability to use their built in reporting tools afterwards is useful too.
If you had to visit each computer manually and collect the information, how much time would that take? That's how you justify the cost.
I don't know.. problably 60-80 hours of work after hours for 2 months period
Then multiply that 60-80hours of work times the amount you get paid an hour.
Let's say you get paid $25 an hour. That'd be 2000 bucks... Every time you had to do something like that.
You could buy the full boat enterprise version of PDQ for $500 bucks.
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@LAH3385 said:
2nd question: Would you run the inventory application on a virtual machine..say virtual box..scrap it after the first trial and reinstall everything again to use the same trial the second time.
I'm pretty sure this is unethical. If you want to be sure, ask the software company if it is ok. If you know they will say no, then it's unethical.
Also, a lot of trial licences prohibit usage for anything other than testing. Ie you can't use it to do commercial work. You can't benefit from using it, you can only test to see if you would benefit if you purchased it. Autodesk is like this, for example.
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So after presenting my boss with the reasons your guys provided.. he said he will try to push for PDQ inventory Pro for 1 year
He still have to bring it up to his boss before final approval. -
If the trail period is greater than the length of the need go ahead there is no moral issue there. It's using it as intended. We ask the company in cases like this and they usually say Feel free. sometimes they even generate a 60 or 90 day licences for our use.
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I use PDQ Inventory and Deploy Pro. It's become one of our lifelines here. I am not sure we could live without it now.
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