Cognos/IBM policy regarding new users

[Etienne Rompr é]

Hi,

I have a customer that is on Powerhouse/OpenVMS since 1999.  They left
support on 2004 since we never had to call them in the 5 previous years.

We have 25 runtimes or their server.  They need new users since they added a
new location.  They have 20 users but I need to leave 5 unused user since
they print report online (slave printer) or for batch jobs because the way
Powerhouse licenses work.

So I asked Cognos for the price for 5 additional licenses.  They quoted me
4115$ CAD (which is OK for 5 users) but they also said that I need to get
back on support for 2 years back and 1 year forward for an additional 9900$
CAD.  So for 5 additional users, this sums up to 14015$ or 2800$ per user.
At this rate, even Microsoft licenses seems cheap.

If I present this to the customer, they will show me the exit pretty fast
and find another car rental package running on the web or on Windows.

Any suggestions on how to pass this to the customer.....
or
Any suggestion to move away from Powerhouse to another OpenSource tool to
redo the rental package.

Thanks!

Etienne