NA: IT price check aisle 4

[Let'sgoflying!]

Just wondering if this 'time on the job' is within the range of normal. I am used to clicking 'download MSE' for free, so I know I have a wildly biased mindset on the topic:

IT company bought me "Trend Micro Worry - Free Business Security Services Tier 2 XSP B2B 1YR Service 1-25U" for my HP ML350T09 E5-2609V3LFF server and 3 desktops, 2 laptops. $150bucks per year.....and 5 (Five) Hours To Install!

Still shaking my head a bit over that. But maybe that's normal. What say IT experts here?

This server/workstations truly will have minimal use or dataloads, they will all use Quickbooks and occasional internet use. This is a completely minimalist set-up, really nothing fancy or difficult or high-end. I have maybe 2g of data, if that matters, or tells you the huge range of activity being protected.
I'd love to wake up Wed morning to hear from POA I am not being fleeced.

 

[RJM62]

I haven't used or installed any of Trend Micro's business software in years, but the price for the software itself doesn't seem out of line with what I remember. The price back then did include a significant markup for the installer or reseller, but the customer paid the same price as if they had bought it from Trend. So the $150.00 sounds okay.

The five hours for installation seems a bit on the high side, but maybe not. If all the equipment were brand-new and never-used, then I'd be suspicious. But if any of the machines were already in service, then not so much. It's really hard to say in that situation.

Installing security software on an already in-service machine requires uninstalling the old security software, rebooting, and sometimes cleaning out miscellaneous registry entries that the new software barfs on because it believes the old software is still installed. This used to be a common problem with Norton / Symantec stuff. Their uninstall scripts left so much crap in the registry that very often, the new vendor's software would refuse to install. So we'd have to clean the registry and reboot again before we could install the new software.

This also applied if the machines were brand-new but had come with trialware security software installed. That had to be uninstalled first, followed by a reboot, and possibly by some registry cleaning and another reboot. We also uninstalled any other useless crapware the manufacturer had installed while we were at it. That added some time to the job, but it was in the clients' interest because it usually improved performance.

Also, if it's an in-service machine, then it has to be re-scanned once the new software is installed (or sometimes before, depending on the vendor, or sometimes both before and after). That's time-consuming, and most techs won't leave until it's done if the machine has already been in service. On a brand-new setup, we'd usually either skip the scan if the software allowed it, or cut the client a break and let the scans run on their own while we went and did the next jobs. But on an existing system, most techs wait around for the scans to finish, especially if they weren't the ones previously servicing the systems.

So it's really hard to say. If it's a completely new setup and none of the machines have ever been used or exposed to the Internet, then five hours sounds a bit high to me. If any of them had ever been used, however, or if there was existing security software and/or trialware/crapware that had to be uninstalled, then maybe not.

Rich

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

Completely new except for the MSE on both laptops.
Yes there was some bloatware on the 3 workstations which I removed.
Thanks

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

I called TM and they say 1-2 hours max. "5-10mins per machine" (I have 5)
Feeling fleeced.

 

[RJM62]

I called TM and they say 1-2 hours max. "5-10mins per machine" (I have 5)
Feeling fleeced.

Yeah, it sounds like there could have been some padding going on. But I can't make that indictment with absolute confidence. Sometimes weird **** happens and the "easy" jobs turn out not being so easy.

But yeah, five hours for brand-new machines sounds really questionable to me unless there was something else they were doing (like network configuration, for example) during the same visit.

Rich

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

apparently the TM software automatically pulls MSE off.
oh well, I'll put on the bigboy pants about it, I am lucky to find anyone to do the project