Licence per mailbox instead of per server - ORF Forums

@will: Will,

I understand how our renewed licensing puts you at a disadvantage. However, we are still committed to bring you the best value in the market and designed the new licensing and pricing accordingly. Just contact us at and I am sure we can come to an arrangement that works for you.

@carl.nelson: Carl,

That is indeed a huge change, are you sure you checked the right prices and took our licensing basis into consideration? Unlike the vast majority of the industry, we license ORF per actual user and we define a 'user' as someone who has access to emails filtered by ORF. This usually translates to 'all email-enabled employees within my company'. Our typical competitor licenses per mailbox or per email address, so you usually end up with a lot higher number of licensing units.

I am quite confident the $5,000 price tag you calculated applies to some other situation (the maximum SMA list price defined on our website is $1,000). Please contact us at and we will check what price exactly applies to your company.

@robert.hill: I have responded to that email from our Customer Service email address - I think there have been a misunderstanding regarding which price to apply (it should have been the renewal price) and the licensing basis.

@jean.davis: Jean, Norbert:

Let me sum up the renewal rules change: The renewal deadline in our previous licensing model was often missed by our clients, which meant that they had to purchase a full license for $239, as opposed to the $99 SMA. This was an unreasonable penalty for just missing a deadline, so we decided that from ORF 5, we let expired SMAs to be renewed. For a number of reasons - including to make the policy fair for all - SMAs are still chained to each other, however. This means that if your SMA expires on June 1, 2013 and you renew it on September 1, 2013, the renewing SMA will be valid between June 1, 2013 and June 1, 2014, regardless the purchase date. Basically, everything happens as if you have renewed in time, without any additional penalty charges.

A few additional key points:

* SMAs can be renewed first 60 days before expiration (no change from EE)

* SMAs can be renewed after expiration. This applies to ORF Fusion and Fusion for SBS only until further notice (so not just for the first year!). The renewal can be done automatically via our website within 1 year of expiration. After more than 1 year, our Customer Service provides a custom quote for the renewal.

* When renewing ORF Enterprise Edition SMAs with ORF Fusion or ORF Fusion for SBS SMAs, you can renew an expired ORF Enterprise Edition SMA if it has been expired for less than one year. The "SMA chaining" applies here, too - that is, if your ORF Enterprise Edition expired on January 1, 2012, you renewal SMA will be valid to January 1, 2013 only.

Please let me know if you need more information.

@gregg.hill: That is correct, you have already obtained the rights to download and use ORF Fusion and Fusion for SBS by your ORF Enterprise Edition SMA. The very purpose of SMAs is to guarantee access to any new commercial releases of ORF within their validity period and this incldues ORF Fusion and Fusion for SBS.

"And if I do choose to renew, it is only a jump from $99 to $125 for the SBS version?"

If you choose Fusion for SBS, that is also correct.

"Can we still buy through the ShareIt program to get the discount credit when buying for clients? If have a $99 spiff sitting there that I cannot touch due to it not being over $100 for them to pay me."

We have entirely switched to cleverbridge e-commerce from share-it! and we currently do not have an affiliate program. We have, however, a brand new Partner Program, which I believe may be interesting to you (learn more at http://vamsoft.com/partners/overview). I think my colleagues at http://vamsoft.com/company/contact-us#contact-partners are more qualified to answer the partner-related questions, but I can tell you we grant discounts directly now instead of the share-it! third-party account.

@gregg.hill: That is already not $5,000, but it will not be even $3,900 due to the following:

* In the first year, we provide 30% discount automatically. Due this, the last published list price is $1 instead of $1.3 (see the Upgrade Discount row at http://vamsoft.com/support/docs/orf-5-changes#activatetab-3), so the new total would be $3,000 for a 3000-user organization.

* We are flexible and definitely do not mean you to pay a cent more than ORF is worth for you. Above 1000 users, pricing is subject to negotiation and there is room for manoeuvring even below 1000 users. All it takes is contacting us and we will find a deal that works great for you.

@gregg.hill: Gregg, we understand there are huge jumps in pricing for some and we do everything to lessen the blow by negotiating on a case-by-case basis (so I cannot support your calculation, because it's just not how it works).

I should also point out that the value generated by ORF is usually proportional with the number of benefiting users. If you think about it, ORF generates vastly different value for a 5-person family business and for a 3000-employees company. If we assume ORF saves 2 hours a month for the small business, it will easily save 1200 hours for the large business. At $20 per hour, this generates $40 for the small business every month and $24,000 for the large company. Now that this difference can be expressed in the price tag, our small business clients are often getting a better deal than before ($120 instead of $239, $35 instead of $99), which we think is fair.

Dear ORF Users,

I will try to clarify things which most people seem to misunderstand:

1. If you have an ORF Enterprise Edition SMA which expires/expired after September 8, 2012, you can already download and use ORF 5 on as many server as SMAs you have, regardless of your user count. No additional purchases required. You do not have to buy any new licenses!

2. If you have an ORF Enterprise Edition SMA which expired not more than 365 days ago (or will expire in the future), the new licensing system will affect you only when your next SMA renewal is due. We grant 30% discount from the list price of SMAs for people who upgrade to our new licensing system (ORF Enterprise Edition to ORF Fusion SMA renewal). To calculate your renewal price, please see the pricing table by clicking the PRICING button in the "SMA Upgrade Pricing" row at http://vamsoft.com/support/docs/orf-5-changes#activatetab-3

3. ORF Fusion is licensed per user and not per mailbox. By user we mean a human being who have access to ORF-filtered emails. The number of mailboxes, domain users, etc. is irrelevant. So if you have 50 people in your company with 100 mailboxes, you will need 50 Fusion SMAs only.

4. If you need licenses/SMAs for more than 1000 actual users (again, actual human being), and/or you are an ASP/ISP, we offer custom pricing. Contact us:

For more information, please read the FAQ section (you have to scroll down a bit) at http://vamsoft.com/support/docs/orf-5-changes