Licensing Logjam Holds Back Veritas Customer

As we've seen, many of my readers harbor some resentment for what Symantec has done with the Norton product line over the years. But now one reader is wondering if the same won't someday be the case with Symantec's acquisition of Veritas, particularly after the licensing fiasco he's just experienced with Backup Exec. "It all started in early 2006 when I first purchased the Backup Exec products and was sent their

As we've seen, many of my readers harbor some resentment for what Symantec has done with the Norton product line over the years. But now one reader is wondering if the same won't someday be the case with Symantec's acquisition of Veritas, particularly after the licensing fiasco he's just experienced with Backup Exec.

"It all started in early 2006 when I first purchased the Backup Exec products and was sent their certificates," the reader wrote a few weeks ago. "I received eight pages of certificates, each with different serial numbers, license number, VSNs and whatever else Symantec likes to call these numbers. But, when trying to enter the license code into my software, none of these numbers worked. I had to take these numbers to a website, type them in and then be given the number that would actually let me use the product that I'd purchased. I began thinking that Symantec needs a training seminar for their customers to actually activate the software they have already purchased."

Fast forward to December of 2006. "I installed the Continuous Protection Server software on a Windows 2003 server that already had Backup Exec on it with licenses purchased earlier in the year, and I deployed the Continuous Protection Server Agent to a remote server. Earlier this month, the 'demo' license timed out and I had to purchase a license for the Continuous Protection Server Agent. No problem, I thought. But, it turns out that since I'd purchased my server licenses for version 10d, version 11d has come out. I was assured that this wouldn't be a problem and that the 11d license would work with 10d. So, I ordered the license and waited. I phoned Symantec twice asking if I could get an extension on the 'demo' license since I'd already purchased a license for the server but was just awaiting licensing keys. I was told that there was no way to produce a demo extension license for 10d, and I couldn't use an 11d demo extension to get my license to work. By the way, is it just me, or is it nearly impossible to actually find a support phone number on a website these days? But, that's another gripe altogether. So, no luck getting a demo extension, I've just got to sit and wait for the paperwork to go through."