1. Customer Purchase Orders

As you know we have always required the customer Purchase Order (PO) for any discounted Downstream product or support order. However, we recently requested that every order to Downstream, list price or discounted, include the customer order. Let me explain the reasoning behind this request. It has to do with US EXPORT COMPLIANCE REGULATIONS. All US companies such as Downstream that are doing business internationally are required to verify that any customer they sell to or provide support to (which could be simply sending a renewal license) is not on any of the EMBARGO or SANCTION lists that the US Government maintains. This is not a new thing as there have long been embargoed countries (for example, North Korea) and companies (for example, Huawei). However, it has become more complicated in the recent past, with lists changing frequently and even multiple lists to check against. During a recent audit we realized that often the customer’s name and address we receive on our order form is not exactly accurate. There is no bad intention on anyone’s part here, it is just that manually typing (and sometimes also translating) customer information onto our order form is error prone. And that brings us to Downstream requesting POs for all orders. By having the actual customer PO we would had a backup method to ensure that we were as accurate as possible with our customer info.  There was no other reason for requesting the POs for every order. It was not a case of mistrust nor any interest in what else may be part of the order – we only cared about the name and address.

2. License Policy

We also explained that will no longer provide licenses for old versions of our software – specifically CAM350 version 11.x and earlier, and Blueprint version 4.x and earlier. We just cannot support them anymore. As of December 31, 2024 we will only be creating licenses for Blueprint version 5.2 and later, and CAM350 version 12.0 and later. We had been providing a final three (3) year license to those customers that have these old versions. Based on feedback from many, we will be changing to a five (5) year license. We will update all licenses already sent, and going forward will send five (5) year licenses for these old versions.

향후 제품 구매와 더불어 메인터넌스를 구매하실 경우, 13개월의 기한을 가진 라이선스가 배부되며, 라이선스는 유지보수가 유지되고 있을 경우에만 새로 요청하여 받으실 수 있습니다.

"유지보수" 가 유지되어야 신규 라이선스를 발급받을 수 있기 때문에, 이 점 인지하시기 바랍니다.

유지보수를 유지하지 못한지 1개월(30일) 이 초과 될 경우, 유지보수 재약정 시 패널티가 있으니 참고하시기 바랍니다.

하기는 미국과의 질문-답변입니다.

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