Most of my clients and readers will be aware that we are a small development shop. And I mean small. There is basically only myself as the lead developer/analyst, plus I have two other programmers on contract who help me out from time to time on various projects.
Being a fairly disciplined and organised sort of programmer, I have always used some sort of software version control and bug tracking tools to ensure that our development cycle works at it’s best. And being an Aussie company, I also love supporting local businesses, especially one that has a high profile and excellent customer reviews as Atlassian.
So this month, after out internal open source development platform (CollabNet Enterprise Edition) crashed for the nth time and we lost some data, I decided to look for a commercial equivalent. Note: I believe that Open.Collab.Net is no longer distributing CEE these days – correct me if I am wrong. Note2: I actually loved CEE, but it was always too unstable for my liking.
So I decided to check out JIRA, from Atlassian. Whilst browsing their site, I noticed that they had a JIRA Studio product, which was a totally hosted product that included their excellent JIRA bug tracking, plus a wiki, plus Subversion hosting. Excellent – just what I needed.
I had a look at their pricing, and it said US$50 per user. Fantastic – certainly within our budget. But wait…the fine print said 5 users minimum. Minimum?? We only have at the most, 2 developers working on any one project. What am I going to do with the other 3 licences? US$250 per month is well outside of our budget. At todays rate, that works out to around AUD$4900 per year.
Hmm, the average project we work on is around AUD$2000. That means that we will need to bill at least 3 projects every year before I can even start putting food on the table. Not Good.
Then I browsed the rest of their site. Guess what? I noticed that they give free licences for their JIRA bug tracker and Confluence wiki for personal developers. Great, they must do the same for JIRA Studio too? Wrong! I couldn’t see anything.
Note: Yes, yes, I know – the personal licence is for non commercial use only, which excludes us. But hey, I decided to check on this and to email their sales team to verify. After all, I am a software developer as well, and I can understand these sort of licencing requirements.
So I shoot off an email to the JIRA sales team:
Good Morning,
I am very interested in the Jira Studio product, however being a small 2 person development shop, the pricing of US$2500 per year is outside of our budget. I was wondering if you had a personal/individual licence option as with your non-hosted Jira product which may be affordable by smaller companies such as ours? Thanks, Devan
A day later, I receive this very nice reply from Douglas:
Hi Devan, Thanks for the email Sorry to hear that JIRA Studio is outside your price range. You might want to consider using one of our free JIRA Personal Licences. These licences enable you to use any JIRA edition for up to 3 registered users. I hope this is helpful - please let me know if there's anything else I can do to help out. Cheers, Douglas
OK, it was worth a shot. Douglas’ suggestion however caused some ethical issues with me, so I decided to clarify:
Hi Douglas, Thanks for your email - the only thing concerning me about the personal licence, is that it states it is for 'non commercial, personal use only'. Seeing as I actually do 'bespoke' software development for commercial customers, I did not want to be in breach of the licence terms. Is it still OK to use the personal licence in this instance? Thanks, Devan
Ok, I realise I am clutching at straws here…A day later, I get a reply from Nicholas:
Hi Devan, Thanks for the update and the additional information. As per my voicemail you should not use a JIRA Personal license in a commercial environment such as your bespoke software development. I recommend you look at purchasing a JIRA Standard license for Blaze. Thanks Devan. If you have any queries feel free to get in contact via return email or 02 xxxx. Regards, Nicholas M --- Please note I am located in our Australian office
Hmmm…Ok, another nice reply, but has anybody realised that I really wanted JIRA Studio? Also, I had to giggle a bit at the signature tagline on Nick’s email – at least I wasn’t talking to anyone in Atlassian’s Guatamalen office! But not being one to give up, I thought I would give it one last go:
Thanks for your reply Nicholas - but this leads me back to my original problem, in that we are a small 2 person development house, and we like the features of JIRA Studio. Ideally we would like to use this solution, but the pricing is too high for our needs. We really only need 1 developer and 1 collaborator licences, but having to purchase 5 minimum is a deal killer for usI can justify a spend of even $100 per month for such a service, given our size, but $250 is prohibitive. Cheers, Devan
Pulled out the violins…weeping angels and all the stops. Alas:
Hi Devan, I'm sorry to hear the pricing for JIRA Studio is prohibitive for your team. If you have any other queries feel free to get in contact via return email or by calling 02 xxxx. Regards, Nicholas M
That’s it. A 2 line ‘go to hell’ response. Oh OK, perhaps not a ‘go to hell’, but a fairly final notice nonetheless. I must admit at feeling a little bit deflated at this stage. I thought that a company with a reputation for good customer service, and an easy going corporate nature might at least have turned around and said something like ‘we’ll check with the boss and see what we can do’…but perhaps not.
It looks like other people out there have had their fair share of similar experiences with trying to purchase from Atlassian. Rob Di Marco from Innovation On The Run has written an article, as well as Zoli Erdos from Cloud Ave.
Ah well, looks like it’s back to evaluating Project Locker and Code Space, who seem to offer the same sort of services, but at prices friendlier to our business. If anyone out there has any other recommendation, please do not hesitate to leave me a comment.
November 10th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Devan — I’m sorry you could not find what you wanted: a 2 person user hosted. We try very hard to satisfy small (very small in fact) and large customers, but sometimes we cannot. To keep our prices low, we try to simplify and standardize our pricing. Lots of variations drive your costs up. I would point out:
– We think equal treatment, full transparency, and low prices are important to the vast majority of customers. We do not make exceptions nor grant special discounts, even when pressured by a large customer who buys lots of licenses. Special deals (‘we’ll check with the boss and see what we can do’) are precisely what to avoid.
– In the spirit of openness, the first sentence on our pricing page for JIRA Studio says “sold in 5 user increments”. I apologize if you consider this fine print. We are really trying to be upfront.
– Should you someday consider otherwise, we would welcome you as a customer. Consider JIRA Studio includes much more than JIRA and Confluence. Most consider our pricing very aggressive given hosting costs. If you find something competitive, we want to know. And yes, Nick in our Sydney office would love to chat with you, mate.
Jeffrey
November 11th, 2008 at 12:48 am
I’m sorry to hear of the troubles you had in dealing with our sales group here at Atlassian. I head up this group and I really want to hear feedback (both positive and negative) so we can work to make the experience better.
The response you received could definitely have been better crafted so that it didn’t come off negatively. That isn’t at all the vibe that we want to exude and I’m sorry you felt that way.
Unfortunately there really isn’t anything that we can do as far as your need for licenses go. We do have that 5 person limit JIRA Studio and there just aren’t any personal licenses for any of of our hosted products. I wish we could shape the offerings a bit to fit your needs but unfortunately we cannot.
I hope you still have a high regard for our products and we’ll work to make sure that your next interaction with our sales team is positive, regardless of outcome. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Joshua Wold
j wold at atlassian dot com
November 11th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Jeffrey and Joshua,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. This is precisely the sort of excellent customer service that I had heard about your company, and I am glad that you care enough to put your thoughts down here.
@Jeff – you are right, the first line on your Jira Studio page _does_ state the 5 user blocks, and I totally missed that in my search for the ‘$’ amount!
I still have a very high regard for your company and your products, and do look forward to the time in the future when I can become a customer of yours.