John,

"Hostage fees" are not a part of the data protection landscape. 

From time to time I come across companies who store their tapes in 
cardboard boxes (as many as they can fit in and still sort of get the lid 
on) which are then stored like documents, or at best as climate controlled 
documents. Perhaps these tapes might have a perm out fee but those people 
get what they deserve.

Up until recent times the only cost of moving vendors was to pay out the 
minimum invoice charge for the period of the contract. But the times are a 
changin and now some vendors are charging a pay out fee of the average 
monthly invoice (rather than the minimum invoice).

Either way, most data protection contracts I have seen have an end date so 
at the end of the contract you can change vendors at little to no cost.

At the end of the day competition drives inovation and if you stay with 
sub par vendors you are simply hurting yourself and the industry as a 
whole.

Gerard

On Thu, 15 No

v 2007 10:45:00 -0500, John Annunziello <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Finally, how bad would service need to be, before you would undergo
>the pain of changing vendors and thereby improve your records
>management platform.>
>
>There is a huge cost if you decide to go down this road.    You would pay
>for withdrawal fees for EACH tape and if you didn't negotiate this as part
>of the contract, you may pay an additional fee for pulling it from the
>shelf.  There's also admin fees and labour charges for piling the boxes
>onto skids and shrink wrapping them.  This should be the last alternative.
> If you have lots of tapes the costs could be exorbitant.
>
>My suggestion would be to send a letter to the president of the company
>outlining your frustrations.   Suggest to them that you are considering
>moving to another vendor but you would like to work this out.  It's
>amazing how things change and how quickly management responds when they
>get these letters.

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]