HP is proving it’s willing to pass its software customers on to third-party alternatives this month, as its DBChange Plus sites learn about offers from three companies ready to replace the IMAGE utility. One company has an extra bonus it’s offering as a lure through the end of this month.

Until June 30, Bradmark Technologies is offering its diagnostics module as a bonus for DBChange Plus sites that switch, along with five others from its DBGeneral utility. Bradmark sales VP Mark Mitterlehner said that buying the diagnostics and recovery module, with tools to analyze masters, details and synonym chains, and analyze and fix paths, is “no cheap date” at its regular price.

“When we looked at the type of clients DBChange had, we felt like we had to have diagnostics as a big benefit,” he said. Bradmark is offering a flat-rate license for the product at $500, with no charge for maintenance in the first year and standard support fees for subsequent years. Modules for internal structure, set maintenance, general utilities and structural changes are part of Bradmark’s offer, as well as the DBAUDIT utility. These modules are being offered through Dec. 31 at the $500 price, and then the offer goes up to $1,500.

Support for the DBChange product ends Dec. 1, and Bradmark sees that HP is more engaged in finding an alternative for a discontinued product.

“HP’s way is to take care of their customers,” Mitterlehner said. “They felt very strong about having opportunities to move those people quickly off. It was very clear from their announcement versus past announcements that was part of their strategy. I think they do a disservice if they’re not doing anything but bug fixes in a five-year period.”

Bradmark has made some organizational changes in the past quarter, adding longtime HP 3000 manager Larry Boyd as vice president of operations, and combining its Open Systems and HP 3000 businesses under one group. Boyd has held technical and business management posts in HP and at Solution-Soft before re-joining Bradmark.

Open Seas and Adager offers

While discounts and no charge for maintenance is the Bradmark path to DBChange migration, two other suppliers are dropping all license charges and relying on support fees to attract customers. Open Seas is offering all DBChange users a migration path to Flexibase for Image for the price of a regular maintenance contract for one year. Pricing ranges from $675 yearly at Tier 1 to $1,950 for Tier 6 systems. Annual support after the first year is optional. Open Seas will quote its support fees from offices in the UK, France or the US, and customers may be required to show proof of ownership of DBChange. This Open Seas offer is valid until May 31, 2001.

Adager’s offer to DBChange users quotes a similar arrangement. Customers who pay Adager’s standard pre-paid yearly $1,000 maintenance fee get a copy of its Model 2 version for free through Dec. 31, and get a 70 percent discount off the product after that date. Model 2, the full-power version of Adager, handles things like b-trees, jumbo datasets dynamic dataset expansion (for both detail and master datasets) and third-party indexing (TPI), none of which were being handled by DBChange Plus.