Taking care of business

[mtnman]

Here's one slight suggestion -

You want people who rent servers to pay for the license. All well and good. You have a fairly easy automated system to get the forms back to you. You have a poor system of getting back to your potential clients after this has happened.

I have received an email saying the form was received, and now I sit in silence waiting to hear back from you. Maybe have your automated program send out a notice every few days saying our order is pending or something would be good.

So is there any chance of streamlining the licensing process?

[Peter]

this is a support forum, if you wish to suggest stuff to the sales team, then please use sales@teamspeak.org to contact them.

[mtnman]

Obviously you've never sent anything to sales@teamspeak.org :(

And I do believe the title of this section is "Suggestions" :confused:

[Peter]

1. no I have never sent anything to them, but I do know that they take a fair share of time to answer an email, aparently.

2. The name of the board being "Suggestions" does not make it a forum for ANY suggestion :P This is still a support forum, the guys that do the sales stuff do NOT read it much, so writing suggestions in here that would only concern the sales team is not very smart.

[pim]

Linuxfan,


If you read around these forums this issue keeps coming back. The reason why imho is that if people, among which my own serverprovider, does not get back anything from the salesperson, even after faxing once every month for the last 5 months, they will look for the only alternative to bring this to anyones attention, like this forum. This I assume in the hope that somebody will wake up

Cut these guys some slack, these rare birds are actually trying to legalise the use of their software and pay for it. Don't blame them if they get frustrated when no one gets back to them.

Either solve this with a adequate salesperson, or don't bother anymore and stop "selling"

Just my 2-cents:p

[Mizery De Aria]

Originally posted by pwk.linuxfan
this is a support forum, if you wish to suggest stuff to the sales team, then please use sales@teamspeak.org to contact them.

But I have!!!

I sent a message on April 14th, 2004 only to never get a response back and I forwarded the same exact message again on May 10th, 2004 and I still have not received any information regarding a licensed server.

Why not just document the licensing costs on the site and add an order form?

[tsc-paul]

It has been close to 6 months now since faxing in license agreement to the sales people.

If the teamspeak developers want to get paid for using their software commercially, then why are they ignoring the customers that are trying to pay them?

Funny that Vent tightened up their licensing because hosts were not paying them, yet teamspeak has SEVERAL forum posts where hosts are literally begging them to take their money.

[Brain]

Funny that Vent tightened up their licensing because hosts were not paying them, yet teamspeak has SEVERAL forum posts where hosts are literally begging them to take their money.
Well, that shows which program is the better one ;)

Seriously now, sales is really understaffed guys, you really should put more energy into that.

[R. Ludwig]

actually if you write to sales, with a new request about licensing. you will get an autorespond email.

we are currently buildung up a new automated site and a complete proffesional sales team.

so in some weeks all this issues are fixed.

[Ivan]

I have sent in my request. I have got my reply asking me to fill out the forum asking me about slots and info.
I did that and sent it back 5 April.

Still no reply.

How do you really get a TS License ?

I understand you guys get lots of request's...but hey lets get this thing rolling....PLZ !!

[panaman]

Maybe they don't like money.

[chrisgill]

I am having the same trouble. Been sending request forever and no reply. I know we have sent about 8 request in now. I am just going to start selling it. When they finally get upset and come to me, I have all the documentation to backup my claims. I am going to go broke on the server cost waiting for them.

[mtnman]

Yeah, you should try explaining to customers why they can't have a Teamspeak server.

"Well I sent in a resquest over a month ago and have followed up, but they haven't gotten back to me. " People renting games don't want to hear I can't give them a TS server, if others can, then why can't you?

I've lost a few accounts because I can't offer TS, but why bother? I'll offer Ventrilo and leave it at that. At least they answer requests for licensing promptly.

I still check and hope I see an email from TS, but everyday is the same as before. No answer.

Send an email to sales@teamspeak.org. I did numerous times asking an ETA, only to be met with silence. Must be nice to be almost the only program in town, I wouldn't know, I just try to eek a living off of good support. I must be doing it all wrong.:confused:

[Kippenijzer]

Ehm, don't know how long ago it was you requested the Ventrilo license, but they haven't been offering licenses for about two months either already, and tbh I guess TS is doing way better at explaining why... Vent. forums are filled with people who'ld like a license, but most replies are either stupid (some users replies "they can do what they want, they don't have to tell you why they don't offer more atm", in _every single thread_ about the subject. And the Vent. ppls themselves are arrogant in they way the respond to questions about the subject, don't ever give people some for of ETA when there will be new licensing, and aren't helpfull at all.
Nope, TS2 at least is clear about what they're doing with respect to licensing. Should take to long before they will start accepting them again, and that really can't be said of Vent.

[Peter]

This last post seems to indicate we ever "stopped" accepting licence orders, which is not true. Though the sales team is going through some big changes currently to allow us to answer the many many requests more promptly and professionaly, this should only mean that it can take a fair amount of time until the sales team gets back to you, it specificly does not mean that no licences are being sold at the moment, just that its not as quick as we would like it to be, and are dealing with it.

[mtnman]

Don't know where you heard about Vent not offering licenses. They are not offering licenses to anyone who wants one, but rather companies that have legitimate Tax ID numbers and a sound business plan. I just received my license a month ago, so unless they've changed their attitude, Vent is still offering licenses as well.

[psycholiquid71]

OK I think this is pretty lame. I have been working with Vent and with TS and I get nothing from either. A good question would be is there a good programmer out there that wants to make some money and program something to do the same thing using IRC as the backbone??? At least then we could get some satisfaction out of all this.

[Florence]

Greetings mtnman and others...

These are very legitimate concerns.

First allow me to apologize for the delays and let me explain the email nightmares I have finally solved over the past month or so. In a nutshell, for the past 2 months or so we were receiving between 500 and 1000 spam emails PER DAY -- despite the implementation of a primary AND secondary spam filter. In addition, the autoresponder we recently implemented was only responding to emails with the keywords "licensing" or "commercial" in the subject line which means if you sent in an email without those specific keywords in the subject line you would not have received a response and your email may have gotten buried in hundreds of other spam emails we're finally almost done sorting through. These problems are now solved.

I can assure you we have every interest in responding to and addressing everyone's requests -- and yes, we sincerely do value your business. We are asking that you continue to exercise your patience in allowing us to unfold our new billing system which will address all of these sales and licensing related issues.

To help address everyone's immediate queries and concerns, I have posted a detailed FAQ in our new forum category called "Sales and Licensing". PLEASE take the time to read carefully through the FAQ and if you still have a question, please resubmit it to sales@teamspeak.org.

Thanks to your patience and cooperation.

[Kippenijzer]

Thumbs up about the licensing update!

My last message was probably misunderstood. I did get that TS2 just isn't actively processing licenses (as in, getting the Licensee-to-be informed on it's status) until your website is fully functional and all, which is good, imho. Ventrilo is actively not accepting new licenses atm (yes, mtnman, please read their licensing page, they are _not_ accepting new licenses, next to the new demnads they have with people requesting a license).
TS2 gives (future( licensees the ability to start hosting TS2 while their site is being fixed, for Vent. you need another version of the program, which you won't recieve until they start accepting licenses again.
Again, thumb up to TS2 :)

It did however make me wonder, Vent. is having a (insane I think tbh) minimum required slotscount of 1000 nowadays (was 100 iirc in 2.1.x times). Will TS2 be working with a minimum slots count as well, or are you guys still accepting the "smaller" or just started hosting companies? (With the slot-price calculation in the Licensing thread posted, I think it'll be none or 100 still, right?)

[Florence]

You bring up a good point:

It did however make me wonder, Vent. is having a (insane I think tbh) minimum required slotscount of 1000 nowadays (was 100 iirc in 2.1.x times). Will TS2 be working with a minimum slots count as well, or are you guys still accepting the "smaller" or just started hosting companies?

A little background first:

The primary purpose of a minimum slot count is to try to "weed out" anyone who is truly not serious about running their hosting operation. For example, it's just all too easy nowadays (and just plain bad business) for someone to throw up a web page claiming to be an Authorized Teamspeak Host Provider (ATHP) and licensing only 25 slots then watching that same entity shutdown a month later and leave all their current and/or potential customers wondering what happened.

In addition, this can harm the consumer's pespective and can potentially plant a seed in someone's mind as to how poorly all other supposed Teamspeak hosters may operate.

To answer your question:

Yes, we will have a minimum slot count requirement to be considered an ATHP. No it will not be 1000 ;) Our focus is to allow anybody who has a GENUINE INTEREST in becoming an ATHP the opportunity to do so. Considering how "minimal" a startup hoster's licensing investment really is, my current best guess as to the minimum slot count we will be looking for is probably in the neighborhood of 100 to 250 slots.

This is such a good question I think I'll go add it now to the Sales & Licensing FAQ... ;)

[Kippenijzer]

And thumbs up again. I just had I conversation about this subject with a friend of mine, and requiring a minimum of a thousand slots is just a very large number, especially for newcomers in the voice hosting. Especially if you think of gameserverhosters, which isn't the most profitable way of exploiting voice communication, as the games themselves don't have to large a margin on them usually, just expecting $100,-/month as a minimum is insane imho, and it's even more insane if you ask me that their advise actually is to start "reselling" form an existing licensed host.
"Uhm, I'm sorry, I have a number of XYZ Gigahertz machines on some 100Mbit pipe, and now you want me to pay others to use their hardware to host stuff my machines can easily handle, and then some..."
The above is true for them, as the licenses are bound to the machines of the licensed host, so it's not possible (also as they use a special version of vent. to prevent the large number of illegal hosting nowadys, which only these official licensees receive) to host in one my own hardware, and just bye 100 or 250 slots from them for instance.

Btw, another question. This sales/license faq is in the subforum "Teamspeak.org", which I can not find through the normale "teamspeak" forum index, but just through the link on the homepage with the update, is it me, or is this the expected behaviour?

[R. Ludwig]

Btw, another question. This sales/license faq is in the subforum "Teamspeak.org", which I can not find through the normale "teamspeak" forum index, but just through the link on the homepage with the update, is it me, or is this the expected behaviour?

thanks for that info, just fixed that.

[Brain]

Regarding the minimum slot requirement:

Assume I provided a managed dedicated server for somebody for money, as in, I get money for keeping his server up and running, a rare event in my life (what with the money). Unfortunately I haven't found somebody yet, but this might still happen :)
And now the guy wants me to install a TS2 server on this server for himself and his buddies. According to the current license this would be considered commerical use because they pay me money to maintain their server.
Does that mean I have to purchase a 100 slot license just for the dozen or so people who use that server? And if perhaps I get a second or third person who want me to maintain their servers as well do I have to purchase the minimum slot number for those each as well?

[Florence]

Hi Brain.

You are certainly liable for the 100 slot server license and/or any other Teamspeak servers you run on that box as per our Sales & Licensing FAQ, and via inclusion of other services (you maintaining the box), you are essentially being paid for the maintenance of that box, and by your choice are choosing to run 100 slot server on that box.

If, per your post, you are only seeing "a dozen or so people" use that server, then I would suggest dropping the slot count to 15 or so to save on the licensing fees ;) With that in mind, you may not even qualify to become an ATHP due to the minimum slot count requirement (hint hint).

The bottom line is -- licensing applies to the folks that meet our minimum slot count requirement and are in some way, shape, or form making money directly, indirectly, or via inclusion of a Teamspeak server along with other services they offer.