Perforce Licensing -- How We Do Business

Why doesn't Perforce negotiate price and terms like everyone else?

Any customer who buys Perforce should rest assured that they not only got the best software configuration management system available, they also got the best -- and only -- deal on it.

A number of our customers employ purchasing agents or lawyers specifically to negotiate a deal from vendors like us. When negotiations begin, we sometimes don't come across quite right. They think we're being rude, or tough, or plain stupid, and they sometimes take offense. In fact we aren't negotating at all; we're simply explaining how we do business and we mean no offense by it.

What we sell is a single product that includes the program you use, the support we provide for it, and the ongoing obligations spelled out in our End-User License Agreement (EULA). We don't negotiate any of these for the following reasons:

  1. We believe we can produce a better product if we have a single version on which to focus. Customizing the EULA for a customer is no simpler than customizing the program for a customer.
  2. We prefer to focus our efforts on engineering the product and supporting our customers. Accomodating per-customer negotiations would require us to employ people to do the negotiating as well as any subsequent customizing. A necessary increase in price would reflect both the cost of customization and room for a new "asking price."
  3. The vast majority of our customers are satisified knowing that they've gotten the same deal as the next person. Our wide reputation for excellent service would never have materialized if customers had to fight for it.

A specialized EULA does not do much to protect the interest of the customer. If we were a vendor committed on shortchanging the customer we could hire entry-level support engineers instead of seasoned professionals, or sell new "editions" of the product rather than upgrading the existing one. If you want to know how you're going to be treated, your best indicator is how we've treated everyone else. We're proud to offer a single product that has been continuously expanded and improved since 1995 and a reputation for quality of support unrivaled in the industry.

Christopher Seiwald
President and CEO

Nigel Chanter
COO and VP of Marketing

Carolyn Ewing
VP of Operations

Bill Dayton
Director of Licensing