Hello GiantOCR,
I am a maintenance and reliability consultant, formerly the Midwest Regional Manager of Datastream.

While I don't have access to Datastream's (now owned by Infor) business plan, I can tell you that the company has been trying for years to upgrade customers to 7i with limited success. Numerous times, the company has announced that it will no longer support X product as of X date. When that date arrived, it was business as usual.

The majority of Datastream's customers are running Mp2 software. Unless Datastream is willing to give up this business, they will continue to support Mp2.

Datastream is still developing Mp2 products, as patches have been and will continue to be released.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have additional questions or concerns, feel free to contact me at jennifer_ohl@yahoo.com

Hello,

here in Europe we can see, that Datastream is reducing manpower (and by these means also service) more and more.
But I can't say whether this is due the Infor deal or due to the difficult situation of standalone CMM system (they loose market shares more and more to SAP).

I have no idea what the intention of the Infor deal is:
- Do they need a CMM system to integrate into their system ?
- What does this mean to the "existing" systems (MP2, MP5, 7i) ?
- Do they want to get the market share of DSTM ?

What is the average profit margin on software maintenance/service agreements?

I would guess it to be high.

Any idea if buying a bunch of MP2 and 7i maintenance/service agreements is a valid business?

I would guess it to be a pretty good business - but I am not in a position to know for sure.

Anyone care to predict the future?

Terry O

Hi Terry,

this would not be the first CMMS which has been handed to a another company for maintenance.
As long as the company can handle all maintenance and service issues and has some guys with deep knowledge, this will be an nice job.