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Bob's Bio

Consumers

The SWSoft Experience

This page updated on 10/25/07

The Products

I had my first exposure to SWSoft through the use of their excellent product PLESK when I set up a virtual Hosting machine through ekklesia-online. Plesk was a fantastic interface to an Apache Server. I was charged a monthly fee based on the number of domains, I had on the server. Plesk came with many free applications like Mambo, Postnuke, Wordpress etc. but I wanted to provide my customers (man of who were church users with little or no computer savvy) with the easiest, most feature rich interface I could.

Plesk also came with modules preinstalled, such as Watchdog (free) and Sitebuilder (requires a license).  Here's where the problems begin. I installed the software module for Sitebuilder, and received error messages that the software could not be found. I knew the software needed a license. Sitebuilder was seamlessly built into Plesk, which as I said was an excellent product I was very impressed with, so I decided I would go ahead an purchase the license back in July 2006.I thought if I had the license and put in the key, it would make the package work.

Item : SiteBuilder, 100 Sites for General Publishing
Quantity: 1
Line Item Price: $199.00

A follow-up email gave me the warm fuzzy feeling that I was in good hands:

Feel free to contact sales@swsoft.com with questions regarding SWsoft products.

Apparently that doesn't include making the software work!

Boy was I wrong! What I failed to realize as I was looking through the myriad of information on their web page, is that the software really had no warranty on it! The following is their support policy on Sitebuilder:

SiteBuilder Support

SWsoft understands that we can only be successful if our customers are successful using our Products. We take pride in providing our clients with timely, helpful and efficient support. To that end we provide a number of support options including direct contact with the Support Team through your software.

Before contacting support you may want to check your software to make sure it's the latest patched version. We release patches regularly to fix issues as they arrive and recommend that you check your version before you contact support. Fix issues are listed in the release notes for new builds which you can read on our Download page.

Support Packages

SWsoft offers a one-year e-mail and phone support package for $549 USD. Email and Phone support includes phone support for a maximum of 25 incidents from 9am to 5pm (EST) and unlimited e-mail at Server Support Online Form.

We also offer a one-year unlimited email support package for $299 USD and a per-incident phone support package for $75 USD.

Technical Services

Please contact sales@swsoft.com or call (703) 815-5670 for more information or quotes on Technical Services work from the SiteBuilder Tech Team.

Being as naive as I am, I assumed that since Plesk was a product I was paying for (which worked fine) and Sitebuilder was a product I had bought and had seen it working fine, that they would play well together, and the SWSoft would help me make them play together. I did not realize that. I sent them the following e-mail:

I have a virtual hosted server that I am paying for. I have PLESK 8.0 set up, and there is a module (PWSE) that requires a key. I have purchased a 100 user license for Sitebuilder, and have a temporary key. Plesk will not accept the temporary key to activate PWSE. I tried to install Sitebuilder 2.0 on the server with PLESK and I am told that it is already installed (PWSE?). So I cannot install SItebuilder 2.0, I cannot activate PWSE, so I probably just threw away $199 on the Sitebuilder license.
 
The virtual hosting is through www.ekklesia-online.com.
 
Existing PLESK key is PLSK.XXXXXX.XXXXXX
 
The only problem I have in updating the key, is, how long is it good for, and what happens if I change my features on the Virtual Server?
 
Can you provide some direction?

I could ask questions to sales, right? I received an excellent and quick response from a Dmitry:

First of all it there is some misunderstanding persists let me explain situation about PPWSE and Sitebuilder. First of all this is two different products. PPWSE is powerful solution for managing and creating websites is integrated completely into the Plesk 8.0 for Linux/Unix interface. This product goes as add-on to Plesk. It requires additional license key be installed. This license key should be installed through Plesk interface -> Server -> License Management -> Additional license keys.
 Sitebuilder is a separate product which can be installed as stand alone as well as with Plesk. It also requires Sitebuilder key. From the order that you gave us I can see that license key is   
SB.xxxxxxxxx.xxxx. This is permanent license key and it can't be installed through Plesk but should be uploaded through Sitebuilder admin interface.
 You can get more information about sitebuilder product on our website.

 Please check this information and let us know if you have any further questions.

 By the way, Sitebuilder can be also integrated with Plesk since we have special module for that that goes with Plesk distributive.
 

I replied to Dmitry, with the exact issue I was having. Frankly their documentation was almost useless in dealing with an auto install as a module in Plesk. They have a knowledge base which was also no help. I received another response back from Dmetry, again, I felt he was being helpful and thought were on the road to success:

 I understand what are you talking about. It seems Sitebuilder installation does not completed on your server at all. After all Sitebuilder packages are installed you should run http://sitebuilder.domain.tld URL and complete Sitebuilder installation using root login and password for MySQL database. After that you should be able to complete Sitebuilder and Plesk integration. We can check all settings for you and complete this integration and in this case we will need root server access, if it is possible, of course. Please also, note domain.tld - you domain and you need to make sure that sitebuilder.domain.tld resolves to IP address that you have on your server where Sitebuilder installed and that sitebuilder.conf file contains the same address (if you have Plesk installed on the same server it should be /etc/httpd/conf.d/zz011_sitebuilder.conf file).
 

So it looked like we were home free, they would go in and see what the issue was. I provided them with root access and received the following reply from another person, Anastasia:

Hello Bob,

we need permission that will allow us to login to the server you are requesting help for. A server permission form should be filled in before we can login to your server. This form should be submitted for every new issue even if you did this previously: https://www.swsoft.com/support/spf

This is where the the real issues came up. By giving them access I assumed I had already given them permission to USE that access. Secondly there were two issues in their document:

BY SIGNING THIS AGREEMENT, CUSTOMER ACKNOWLEDGES AND CONFIRMS THAT CUSTOMER HAS READ THE WHOLE AGREEMENT, THAT CUSTOMER UNDERSTANDS THE AGREEMENT, AND THAT CUSTOMER ACCEPTS AND AGREES TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT.

Fees and Expenses. In consideration for the performance of the Services by SWsoft, Customer shall pay SWsoft for time spent by SWsoft and its employees, agents, or contractors in performing the Services at the following hourly rate: $150.00. In the event that this work is done under a Annual, Per Incident or Partner Support Contract those rates/ terms shall apply. Customer shall reimburse SWsoft for all expenses actually incurred by SWsoft in the course of performing the Services.

Additionally, they had very limited liability if in negligence, they damaged or destroyed everything on my server... I was responsible for full backups. I had 60 customers up on the server at this time... I would not sign the form, and requested a refund. I never even received a response denying my request for a refund. I had copied the sales people on the response to Anastasia back on August 3. Unfortunately by purchasing the software, a refund is never offered:

The Software will be available to you for use upon your receipt of one or more license keys. Upon acceptance of this Agreement, you may obtain one or more license keys by paying the requisite license fees, using the procedure set forth on SWsoft’s web site. The license fees paid by you are paid in consideration of the license granted under this Agreement. SWsoft Inc. does not refund license fees. By accepting this agreement you fully understand that once license fee payment is made to SWsoft you will have no recourse for receiving a refund of any part of the fees.

I decided to try one more time to get support by filling out an online request within Plesk on 11/10/06. Again, the gentleman (Dmitry) was good, amicable, and actually went on to the server and sent me some information. He referred me back to the documentation (which still has not been any help to me - but it might just be me). He notified me that my free time is gone, and offered me maintenance, If I understand their maintenance, you need to buy maintenance on a particular product (ie Plesk). If I were to purchase maintenance on Plesk, and the problem happened to be on Sitebuilder (or visa versa) it appears additional costs would apply.

<> Per incident support - $75
<> Unlimited 24/7 e-mail support for one year - $299
<> Premium support - Unlimited e-mail support plus 25 phone instances for one year - $549

Please order your Plesk support package today at SWsoft Online Store:
 http://www.swsoft.com/en/buyonline/support/

Note: Per incident, Email and Premium support agreements cover issues related to Plesk. If your support request is found not to be related to Plesk the work will need to be treated as Technical Services work. SWsoft, Inc. Technical Services are billed on an hourly basis and your per incident support fee can be applied toward this service.

Notwithstanding, I apparently had 30 days to resolve the issue for free (even though that form indicated to me I would have to pay $150 per hour) and my "free" time had run out. I am convinced that Dmitry and I could have made the product work if Anastasia had not stopped the progress. I think their products are fantastic, but I think their customer service is a problem. Buyer beware....

I tried the latest things that Dmitry suggested, but still to no avail. I will update this page if and when I actually get the product installed and working.

11/12/06 0700 SWSoft is now working with me to resolve this issue again. I am not sure why. Dmitry sent back an email and got it actually working,. Latest issue: I go to upload the license key and I get an error message, "upload failed." I let Dmitry know and he is going to check and make sure I have a license key for 3.0 (as opposed to 2.0). I am told I may have to upgrade my key... 

I upgraded the key, uploaded the new key and I am Happy to report that Sitebuilder is up and running just fine.

Update: October 2007 - I upgraded the "Plesk" client software that I use to manage my domains, and of course, all of a sudden, Sitebuilder stopped working (with no warning and no reason. Since I was not privy to what was done to fix it originally I am simply abandoning it, and writing off the $199 investment as a waste. I cannot see doing business with SWSoft in the future, and frankly, cannot recommend you do business with them unless you are completely computer savvy or can afford their very high maintenance rates.