M E R G I N G - I N S I D E

24 December 2009, issue 09/09

Inside this issue :

• ASM, Your safeway in 2010 and beyond
• Season's Greetings

ASM, YOUR SAFEWAY IN 2010 AND BEYOND

Keeping your equipment and software up-to-date isn’t always easy. Most of you are often very busy people that use our solutions in a daily manner, with demanding clients and deadlines to meet. There’s little time left to take care of checking if your systems are running the latest updates and upgrades. And, what to do when you need support in critical moments?

An answer to your worries is Merging’s Annual Software Maintenance (ASM) plan. A basic support plan that automatically provides the latest software versions and assures support on moments when you need it the most.

Even though we perfectly understand that some of you may have a healthy distrust over committing to annual agreements, we strongly believe that ASM will bring a huge benefit over time, when subscribing today. Certainly when, with a new year in sight, we share this little secret with you : 2010 will bring no less than two (yes you’ve read it right; 2) major upgrades for Pyramix and VCube.

• It’s Software Maintenance. Customers who subscribed the agreement are entitled to download updates/upgrades free of charge from our download pages during the covered period. No hardware maintenance/support whatsoever is included.
• It’s Support. ASM provides rights to a basic telephone support (within reason) during office office hours (09.00AM – 18.00PM)
• It’s Annual. It’s validity covers 12 months

To be prepared for 2010 Merging offers you to subscribe to an ASM at very favourable conditions.

When you look to your current situation, you’ll see that it will fit in one of the 3 following possibilities :

• You’ve purchased your Pyramix V6 in 2009 or you have an active ASM
  Read more
• You’ve purchased your Pyramix V6 or upgraded to V6 in 2008
  Read more
• You’re running any Pyramix version prior to V6
  Read more

--> regular path :
You can join the ASM program at the end of the first year after purchase of your system, or renew your existing ASM when arriving at the expiry date

OR…

--> promotional offer :

if you choose to subscribe to ASM, or renew the agreement before 31/03/2010 (regardless the end date of your current warranty/ASM)

• 12 months = 18 months (6 months free of charge)
• 24 months = 36 months (12 months free of charge)

--> promotional offer :

You can join ASM when you decide to subscribe to the program before 31/03/2010. ASM 12 months coverage will start at 01/01/2010, offering you a free of charge ASM bridge from expiry date warranty until 1 st January 2010.

--> you’ll first have to upgrade your system to at least a standard V6 (with or without MassCore) before you can join the ASM program

--> promotional offer :

You can join ASM when you decide to subscribe to the program before 31/03/2010. An exceptional discount of 20% on the upgrades will be granted. ASM 12 months coverage will start at 01/01/2010.

e.g.
you’re still working on a Pyramix V4.3 Music Pack. You now decide to join ASM before 31/03/2010 :

You first need to :

• Upgrade from V4 to V5 (UPG-PMX-5BM) : @ - 20%
• Upgrade from V5 to V6 (UPG-PMX-6BM) : @ - 20%
• Purchase the ASM (ASM-PMX-MU)

Now you’re up to date again with a standard V6 and the assurance to have a free-of-charge upgrade to Pyramix V7.0 and hum, possibly to Pyramix V8.0 as well (be informed that Pyramix V8.0 may only be released for MassCore and Native solutions and that most probably Pyramix V7.0 will be the last one to support non-MassCore Mykerinos systems).

Of course ASM is just a very simple maintenance plan to keep your systems up-to-date in a comfortable way. Dedicated service packs with additional support (remote, on-site, 24/7,…), hardware spare parts, loan machines, etc. can be discussed with your local sales partner.

For the fastest first line support you can contact your nearest Merging Sales Partner. Direct contact with the Merging support hotline will only be possible after their clear notice to our support engineers. Customers without a valid ASM will first have to join the program before they can benefit from any telephone support.

All what has been said for Pyramix ASM is of course also valid for VCube and Ovation, as Merging strongly wants to unify the ASM Support Program across all its products. So the same offers and discounts apply for VCube, in a similar way as presented above for Pyramix. Just replace Pyramix V6.x by VCube 2.x and Pyramix V5.x by VCube 1.x