Unreasonable Customer??

Nuttzz

I recently did some network reconfig work for a customer, part of the work was to put a new laptop on the network and install MS office on it. One small problem was that they didnt have a copy of MS Office and were unwilling to buy one either but wanted me to put a bootleg copy on. I refused as if they were visited by the BSA type people they would say that " XXX Ltd put that software on we didnt know it was illegal". They are now being slow about paying the bill because the owner is p'd off that I didnt put office on. I dont want to go the legal route with them, anyone have opinions?

Meh

Threaten to report them to the BSA if they don't pay up?
http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/piracy/repo_qana.asp

Waylander

If you do you will not get any more business from htem, I do not know if you want their business, but if you do I would just keep ringing up thier accounts payable dept. Call a couple of times a day till you receive the cheque. You just have to make a nuisance of yourself.

Victor

Solicitors letter or Small Claims Court?

antoinolachtnai

Small claims for business-to-business dispute? Don't think that's possible, but I could be wrong.

spongebob

Jeez. A friend just came back from NYC where she bought Office 2003 Small Biz (word excel powerpoint outlook ) for US 200 a pop in a big department store. Thats €160 a pop and well worth it too IMO .

Your customer is a skanger Nutzz . Steal his hubcaps

M

Capt'n Midnight

I think it's only employee's that get the 10% for ratting to the BSA

It's not as if they couldn't already have something in thier budget range...
www.openoffice.org - free
http://www.software602.com cheap

Anything they paid you to do on the office side would only be for your time and effort in installing the software ( turning off quick save /turing on backup copy - setting language , page size etc.)

So basically they want you to break the law for free, and considering the fines and jail sentences possibly, they would want to pay you more than the price of a couple of copies of office. Company directors can get 5 years - people have done less time for killings...

Nuttzz

Meh wrote:

Threaten to report them to the BSA if they don't pay up?
http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/piracy/repo_qana.asp

I didnt install the software so they havent borken the law, they wanted me too, but didint

Zaph0d

My experience with non-MS versions of Office is that they generate a huge amount of support problems. I have tried them and I don't use them and I wouldn't recommend them to a client.

You would like to get paid, preserve your business relationship with the client and not break the law. Here's a few things you could do...

1. You could install an evaluation copy of MS office and advise them that they will need to sort it out in a few months. MS will give you evaluation copies, just call them up. You should get paid in the intervening time.

2. You could install a genuine copy of Office and send them an email explaining that they need to buy a licence for this copy. Keep a copy of the email for future reference. MS would never prosecute you for this. They go for resellers who are passing off pirated versions as real.

3. You could have a look at their total licencing requirements for MS products and see if an 'Open Licence' agreement could save them money. Usuallly it's worth doing if you have more than 5 copies of MS software. They may have an existing volume licencing agreement with MS in which case it would be easy to add on another copy of office at little or no cost.
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/default.mspx

If they are a 100% piracy company then your best bet may be option 2. You've covered yourself, you should get paid and you shouldn't fall out with them over this.

Never threaten your client. Better to state your fear of being prosecuted than make yourself an adversary and destroy all chance of future income and delay your outstanding invoice further.