Support Board
Date/Time: Tue, 25 Feb 2025 03:17:59 +0000
Post From: AMP + Sierra Chart
| [2021-03-20 23:31:54] |
| User931283 - Posts: 55 |
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We appreciate your efforts, and generally strong fast SC platform. I am on AMP CQG, Package-3 Free paid by AMP, a main reason I tried Sierra Charts. (This posting=my original demo acct). Likely 2/3 of SC users came to you by AMP/brokers promotion and subsidy (<-- a deciding factor), and by AMP-CQG's high reputation and performance. Amp listed you in Top 3 of 50 Platforms, as 3 Free, and still does: https://www.ampfutures.com/platforms/ Likely AMP pays you $15/mo. to subsidize new Clients (indirectly you) (you call discount). There's a huge difference between “discount” and "Free"; To AMP users on Pkg 3, you are taking away our $180/yr aid, taking us from Zero to $26/mo, the whole amount, costing us $312/yr from Zero. The best solution is: just add a mandatory $10/mo Support Fee to help cover support/development up to 3 hrs per year. Customers sympathize with supplier difficulties and accept "reasonable" (20%) increases, or a $10/mo fee. (Hopefully versions older than 2 years (to 3 yrs) should still run but get no support without paying extra, but help us to upgrade). Easy. No changes. Raise AMP $1, + user $10= you get your $26/mo. Better, you stay at top on AMP's top 3 "Free" list. Add a footnote about Support $10. Pushing your Data feeds seems part of a strategy to be a leader in good data feeds,-- but most of us (And thanks to you) have seen NO delay or problem from CQG in years, regardless your many harsh criticisms of CQG. A lot of us hoped you'd mostly leave SC more like V1992, to keep most major features that brought us to SC (broker and feed neutrality, backward & other (Excel) compatibility, documentation, ability to run on average computer, no recompiles). Forced upgrades and “improvements" took features away, and caused serious problems for some (me). Most above features touted to entice, you took away, SC knowing huge investments of learning and programming were required which force users to stay on. You, us, brokers are in this together like symbiotic organisms. Only by us working together to grow the user base can most of us survive because most traders fail within a year (avg.2 years on SC?), yet these parts must execute fast, near-flawlessly. Users need user growth, mainly to sustain you other parts of our symbiosis (and bring in new funds). Key to user growth is reputations, promotion, no big failures, and not making users angry. This billing change implicates 3 of those. Your support gets more surly: You say "don't want to hear any complaints", "don't want to hear it", "this is best", "don't talk to the broker", “you get too much.. we're too busy" [don't bother us]. [paraphrased]. Demanding upgrade to latest version for this billing change is to make your feed the default? That may be "tying" a product/cost that most customers don't want (unless we were not forced to change billing, pay more and upgrade). I can’t upgrade because your unneeded recalc. "improvement" caused fine-running V1992 to not run after V2011. (Fix: add option to turn off recalc). Among touted features to entice us that you are taking away is the AMP subsidy beneficial to AMP, to users, and promotion value for SC. AMP’s false offer or SC’s interference in a beneficial relationship as viewed from AMP and users against SC-- appear improper and unnecessarily damaging. Your choosing to spend great time on features many of us didn't need, we should not be saddled to pay: microsecond time stamps, tick-inside bar views, date revision, 1200+?? depth, revised recalculation, spreadsheet formats, order routing, etc..(Smart companies ask customers). It is unfair to force us to suffer difficult upgrades and cover costs for unwanted features and feeds, while losing main features used to entice us. Will you get angry, tell us to go somewhere else, that we take too much time, etc.? Will users ask AMP to fulfill offer/acceptance of "Free" you offered jointly? I hope not. Just add an easy, reasonable $10 Support Fee to get your $26/mo. Let's not get bogged down in viewpoints we know differ; This $10 fee solves your problem, avoids problems and keeps you on top at AMP. None of us want to see a rift between you and AMP, and formal complaints and SC User Reviews/Complaint Websites come about. But, appearing hard-headed, surly, telling us what's best (for you), not caring, uncompromising, unilateral choices and acts... are things we see happen when a company becomes high-handed and uncaring of customer views and harms. Please do not respond until you sleep on this idea.. one night. |