| John Tserkezis 2007-10-03, 4:33 am |
| sfoy@attbi.com wrote:
> I purchased a Navman 3450 GPS unit for my Ipaq Pocket PC back in
> 2003. I just recently updated the operating system on my Pocket PC
> which requires any installed software to be re-installed. When I
> tried to re-install the Navman SmartST software there is an "Activate"
> step which connects over the internet to a web site which somehow
> gives permission to activate the software. This activate step would
> not execute so I emailed Navman. Their response was "sorry, we shut
> down that website". Their excuse was the software is obsolete since
> it's over 3 years old! This really pisses me off, especially because
> their over-protective licensing scheme doesn't even make sense. The
> software and GPS receiver were sold together. So even if their was no
> "activate" step, or license keys, or any type of anti-copy protection,
> why would they even care? Without the Navman GPS sleeve the software
> is useless. What were they trying to protect against with this over-
> the-top licensing scheme???
>
> So now my GPS solution is useless because Navman decided to shutdown
> their website, the XXXXers!
This is an unfortunate situation, because you upgraded your host PocketPC,
and in good faith expected to reload SmartST onto the very same device. The
only difference in validity now, is that the date has changed past their
"support" limit.
As per the other suggestion of contacting the BBB (or whoever it is in your
country), also stay on them. Don't give in, after all, the only other option
left is for them to make MORE money, if you don't give in, they'll lose a bit
of money. They have a strong financial incentive to do what they do.
An associate here had some trouble after upgrading some of the hardware in
the machine that ran some Intuit software (whoops, did I drop that horrid name
again??).
Their response was very similar to yours, only the date had changed, and
they "encouraged" (forced) him to upgrade to the latest version (more money,
even though he was more than pleased with the older version).
Over the course of several days, many phone calls, they eventually gave in
and handed over the keycodes for his new installation.
Inbetween, we were suggesting he hose them, reverse engineer the stored
databases, (or otherwise convert them) and move to some more "reputable" software.
By that stage, he managed to talk them into it, and by the next time he
upgrades, (or a hardware fault develops) he's looking at an entire new
software setup anyway. Probably not something from Intuit this time though...
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