@Magnus
Based on the below, I am sure I am not the only person to express this, but I think Cisco is making a huge mistake with the change to Web Snapshots. I also had the fortune to be part of an EFT and expressed this to product management and sales leadership, but it's fallen on deaf ears. Now Cisco TAC is reaping the whirlwind, and your customers and partners are suffering the consequences of this terrible, nigh on inexcusable decision.
#1: all of your competitors will immediately begin to use this as a lever against Cisco (and us, your partners) in the sales cycle. This is just a fact. It's too easy for them to now make a story about Cisco nickel-and-dime-ing the customer for features that are included in competitor products for free.
#2: Cisco just got done removing Option Key "hell" by making the Dual Display and Premium Resolution option keys free add-ins. This, even at its relatively low cost, is a step backwards.
#3: Inevitably a customer or partner will make a mistake in the ordering process that ends up with this key missed, and there will be customer sat issues as the customer/partner/Cisco account team scramble to place the order and get the key for some important situation.
#4: The customer, and the guise of their system administrators, ultimately control their own environments. If they intend to use this feature, they can (today) turn it on and use it. If they do not, they can (today) turn it off and won't use it. The idea that buying the option key signals "acknowledgement of the functionality and the conscious decision to use" the feature is extremely un-compeling to the point of being laughable. The purchase of the key does not demonstrate a
"Cisco-first leadership in the area of privacy and notification." The idea that this moves the burden of notification to the customer is also ridiculous - that burden was always there to begin with in the form of the EULA.
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I had an idea that may allow you to finesse the situation somewhat. If the option key became a $0 cost line item, but was not auto-installed at the factory, this would require the "positive confirmation" step of acquiring the option key by way of Cisco's licensing portal, thereby giving Cisco the "out" it desires on the privacy front. Even this is not a perfect solution and ends up with some annoyance for customers and partners retrieving the key and putting it into the endpoint, but it's better than what we have today from both an installed base and new endpoint perspective.
I shared this idea with Tom Richards and Finn Helge Lunde at a Partner Advisory Board but obviously the ship has sailed.
But Cisco can still "do the right thing" here and at least move to the middle ground of a $0 auto-included but not pre-installed key. It doesn't even require a change to the software, just changes in your licensing back end to generate the keys, and a change to CCW.
Please do the right thing here.
