how old a system would you support?

[effiecgu]

I have a service contract with a certain office, for a fixed monthly sum that isn't that high.
The network consists of ~9-10 workstations (some are 7-8yr old), running xp/7 pro, and a domain controller running server 2003 + exchange 2007 on a 5-6 year old HP150 (installed quite badly by the previous guy who serviced him).
The owner doesn't want to hear about replacing the old server (or the old machines running xp). He doesn't care that there are no more security updates, and that the hardware is no longer under warranty.
So far I've managed to have the network running smoothly, and therefore the contract remained profitable. I know that sometime in the probably-near-future, that server is going to crash, and he would expect me to spend numerous hours trying to fix it.
So here is the question:
Would you rather take the risk, support a system that old, given the parameters I provided above, make the profit until it crashes, and then deal with the issue, or would you rather say "I can't support something that old, you can either consider upgrading, or stop working with me" (which would probably lose this specific customer)?

 

[HCHTech]

I have a client just like this, a small attorney's office with a creaking server running sbs2003 and 6 workstations on XP. I have been warning them for YEARS now that they need to upgrade their workstations. In reality, they don't even need a server, it just does file sharing. I have done at least 4 quotes for new workstations and a nice Synology NAS. All of which have been politely rebuffed.

I charge a fixed monthly fee for monitoring and hourly when I have to go in to do something.

I service the owners home, and they have no shortage on money. 2 homes 4 or 5 cars, the works. I've decided that I will continue to support them, but raise my prices accordingly. I have always had a hard time getting a meeting with the owner over the years, they are rarely in the office for some reason. They are good customers and pay on time so I Have always just put up with that. I'm planning on doubling my fees and I expect they will just pay it. The whole thing is frustrating but they don't represent a big portion of my revenues so it's just one of the downsides of dealing with customers. They don't all do what you want. If you can afford to lose them, just raise the price to make it worthwhile. My 2 cents anyway.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

So here is the question:
Would you rather take the risk, support a system that old, given the parameters I provided above, make the profit until it crashes, and then deal with the issue, or would you rather say "I can't support something that old, you can either consider upgrading, or stop working with me" (which would probably lose this specific customer)?

You have to ask yourself is you're spending extra time supporting this client due to the fact that they have outdated operating systems that are difficult (and time consuming) to support.

The server being 5-6 years old...shouldn't be a big deal. Sure it's a turd....a 100 series model, prolly has desktop HDDs in it, but honestly does it matter repair wise if it's running 03 or 08 or 12? Time spent trying to revive that glorified desktop wanna-be server shouldn't be much longer due to it being an outdated OS..perhaps an extra hour due many more updates being shoved in.

If the workstations are getting slammed with malware that is exploiting the older OS but wouldn't exploit a Win7 rig....yeah you have a case.
If you're spending too much time trying to deal with sprint sharing/deployment from a 32 bit 03 server with 64 bit clients...yeah you have a case.

A healthcare client or someone that really needs to work at HIPAA compliancy...yeah you'd be on the hook and have a case to support, or walk.

We still have a few clients on 03, SBS03, WinXP....but to be honest the majority of them don't cause us extra grief in supporting them just cuz they're outdated OS's. So we'll keep them as clients as keep making money, and do our due diligence in pushing them for upgrades (keeping a copy of those recommendations for our protection).

 

[HCHTech]

YeOlde makes a good point. If you aren't working harder because the machines are older, then what difference does it make? In my case, they don't have a habit of getting infected, it's just more work because the machines themselves need more care - more frequent rebooting, two of them will not load powershell for some reason, I think it's a dot net issue, but that means some of my GFI scripts won't run on them and I essentially have to remote in and do that job manually for them. The server needs more frequent reboots as well, it's backup system is fidgety, things like that. I should probably buy that Synology and sit it on the shelf to just wait for the day the server falls over.

 

[SetU2]

I remove all systems from maintenance contracts that are over 6 years old and instead charge time and materials to repair them. It is a part of my contract and I'll explain why. It costs me much more to support them, and I have 19 years of past tickets that show that trend quite clearly.

 

[gikstar]

I remove all systems from maintenance contracts that are over 6 years old and instead charge time and materials to repair them. It is a part of my contract and I'll explain why. It costs me much more to support them, and I have 19 years of past tickets that show that trend quite clearly.

I like this idea... but I think for us and our for existing clients, when renewing the contract, we look at the age of the system or the operating system (how many systems running Windows XP) and charge a higher rate per workstation. This might help them see the light and allow us to upgrade those systems. Upgrading doesn't always have to be expensive new computers, sometimes good Win 7 Pro off-lease systems can work .

 

[sapphirescales]

When I get a stubborn client that refuses to upgrade or replace their equipment, I just raise the price of maintaining old systems like that until they agree to replace the systems. Eventually when it costs more money to keep them running rather than just replace them, they're usually swayed. I don't know though. This one guy that I have paid $5,800 to repair his XP systems rather than $3,500 to just replace them. This is the second time he's done this (though last time the price was about the same whether he repaired or replaced the computers). I told him that if he REALLY wanted XP I could build him a new system with DDR3 and a Core i5 and load XP onto it, but he just wants the old ones back exactly the way they were. So long as he's willing to pay, I don't complain. Frankly he just doesn't care. At this point, I think he'd rather pay $10,000 to keep his current systems rather than get replacement systems for FREE. He's a rather illogical fellow, but just doesn't want to mess with it. But like I said, fine by me so long as he's willing to pay.

 

[effiecgu]

Thanks for all the input! As I said above, my situation with that specific client is a bit different: The monthly sum he pays is fixed whether I just need to do some monitoring, or if something doesn't work. So until now the monthly hours I had to put in pretty much equaled what he's paying. I'm just afraid of that day, when the server suffers a major crash, and I would be expected to spend all those extra hours without being paid any extra.
With this client, I know he wouldn't upgrade until it crashes, and maybe even then expect it to be fixed rather than replaced. And he won't agree to a change in the contract.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'm just afraid of that day, when the server suffers a major crash, and I would be expected to spend all those extra hours without being paid any extra..

So you have to ask yourself...(and be honest with your answer)...did the server crash because it was server 03? Would it have still crashed if it was server 08?

Does the server still have a hardware warranty? (you can get extended warranties)

Has due diligence been done on an older server where the client didn't have the budget for a replacement...of at least replacing the hard drives? (the movable parts which are likely to fail first on an old server).

 

[seedubya]

You're running a business and you need to minimise the risk. You need to tell this guy that you will continue to support him but put an upper limit on how much - that's all. Figure out your cost of doing business per hour, add it to your hourly rate, divide by 2 and divide your monthly fee by the result. That will give you the max. number of hours you should put in for this guy in any one month. Explain to him that it's just like insurance - he is engaging in risky behaviour (by not upgrading) therefore the risk increases and the insurance cost consequently increases.

 

[cypress]

I basically just do workstations, but as far old as I go that is Windows Vista. All of my XP clients have thankfully upgraded by purchasing a new PC. I made it clear that their old PC wasn't worth the hassle. Sold them on a new setup with data transfer and away they went. Usually the people that "have money" are the ones holding onto their computers the longest in my experience.

 

[red12049]

I just recently put a box together that had ISA slots, for a mat cutter for a Framing Shop. If I can, I'll help with whatever. BTW, that machine ran WIN 98.

Rick

 

[Mainstay]

Same here as with @red12049 .... Of course we encourage everyone to move their office workstations to W7, but this is not practical (or possible) with some of our customers. Paint mixing machines and embroidery systems are expensive to upgrade, and if we can repair a W98 machine, we will do so to keep the overall costs low.

Our most recent old system was a W95b system that handled and logged (and charged) the phone system in a small motel.

Gawd it was a nightmare. I had to bring a floppy with the USB mass storage driver so that I could load my thumb drive so that I could install a new NIC driver. FFS... I was both laughing and crying.

 

[alluseridsrejected]

About 3 years ago I had a lumber mill call me. The Windows 98 computer that drives their cnc plasma cutter would not power on. When I opened the case, and a couple of acorns and pieces of plastic fell out, the diagnosis was too many mice. It has a missing expansion slot plate and the wires to the power switch were chewed through. I just spliced the wires back together, put heat shrink wrap over the slices and put on a plate to cover the hole. He is still using that computer today. He was so happy he did not have to get a new one and I am sure he would still want it fixed if it broke again.

But they definitely need to be newer the image in my avatar!

 

[ArtemusComputerTechnology]

Great topic and I think we discussed this prior. What I learned from a past experience is to apply with the customers needs of not upgrading. For instance, one of my current clients, a local law firm with a Dell tower model running sbs2003 with 10 shared folders and with 8 workstations running either XP Pro or Vista. I took it upon myself to backup the server's and workstations (folders and docs) on a 1TB external HD. Roughly about 200 gigs in total and saved the backup time and date. About three months later, I received a phone call that the server was acting funny. I checked it out to the conclusion that the HD was failing. Now, after my advice the law firm wants to completely upgrade their workstations. I suggested a NAS unit. I purchased 10 HP 8200 business models (3yr warranty) running Win7 Pro and i5 processor with 160gig HD's. A few of the lawyers also wanted a WD 2TB MyCloud NAS so they can work from home when needed. I had to set individual accounts for each employee and made myself an admin with full access. This method was straight forward as some of you may disagree with or may suggest another alternative.

 

[drnick5]

What I would do is prep a quote for a server and workstation replacement. I'd send it along with a detailed letter to the owner, letting him know that eventually, this will need to happen to continue to be up and running. I'd also let them know that if the server was to crash, they will experience down time, and it will be much more costly to resolve.

Do you have an actual service contract written? Does it spell out in detail what you cover, and what you don't cover? In our case, service and maintenance are covered, but "projects" are not (replacing a server would be a project).

 

[ArtemusComputerTechnology]

Off course, I have a service contract. I specifically cover hardware and software on the workstations if they are still under the manufacturers warranty because the client went through me for purchasing. I keep track of all purchases. I do not cover third party software that I did not purchase such as Quickbooks, etc. I only install, uninstall and reinstall only with a valid license. With the NAS unit, i manage it the hardware which is under the manufacturers warranty. Once the warranty is coming to an end, I notify my client so they are aware. I also manage account setups and access, and backups (workstations and NAS content). I left out a few detailed items in this post but the contract is very detailed.

 

[carlitos31]

I have customers with w95, w98, w2000 and XP, and it seems I am the only guy in town willing to take this type of jobs. Last week I made a new customer that has 3 NT machines. ( he uses it for some old machine that uses software that only runs on NT, replacing his machine would be $30k, but everything works perfectly so he prefers to keep is existing setup. He was turned down by his previous IT guy, and one of my customers with windows 95 computers sent him to me. These kind of people do not mind paying, in fact they know techs that want to work on their computers are becoming hard to find so they are not going anywhere

 

[citizensmith]

If they absolutley got have it their way - and parts are available I support it. I tell them its' way old and will die one day - and its totaly at their risk. Annotated to the bill \ quote.

Theres' a headless p90 running NT4.3 sat on a shelf in the ATC facility. It reverses the data packets from a military contractor's proprietory format to something the entire COTS civilian world uses. One day it will just stop & poo => fan

 

[Steve202]

I would make sure he knows that if the old equipment does go bang, you might not be able to fix it as the parts might not be available. Also document it in case he denies all knowledge of the conversation.