OpenDNS CEO Responds About Free Basic Service Being Axed

This is a continuation from my prior blog post Farewell Free OpenDNS For Businesses (and Churches)

Turns out only SOME businesses/orgs have received the same email we did saying the free OpenDNS Basic service is going away March 15th. Apparently OpenDNS is starting this change with their "top users" and then will roll it out later to everyone else. I find it VERY interesting that GCC is among their "top users" ... I mean our staff is only about 80 full and part-timers.  Wonder what the criteria is to make the top list??

Dean Cooper over on the SpiceWorks community did some digging and here's what he was told:

• Not everyone received notice about the March 15th date. Only the top users of the Basic product.
• This is the beginning of an OpenDNS transition to be a paid only service for business customers. If you did not receive the notice then you can continue to use the Basic product until you do receive notice or they publish it on the website. He would not tell me the timeline for complete transition to being paid only.
• I ask why there is nothing on the website about this and was told that it is because at this time it only effects the top users of the free service and will effect renewals of the Deluxe service plans as they come due this year.
• businesses can continue to use the service for DNS only (no filtering) for free.

Then David Ulevitch, CEO of OpenDNS, commented in thread:

Hey guys -- David from OpenDNS here. We're trying to find the best path forwards that doesn't leave small businesses feeling left out in the cold. We started with our top users as a way of testing the waters with customers who we imagined would be most understanding of the changes, and to gauge the response and feedback.

None of your feedback is wrong, and we care deeply about all the years of support and you've given us. We want to find a way to continue to offer you great security and content filtering services without breaking your bank accounts. Deluxe was EOL'd some time ago, but we have so many existing Deluxe and Basic users who are very large businesses. Our goal is to migrate them to enterprise, and we haven't found the right set of criteria to do that without impacting all of you.

I know it's not your job to negotiate, but I will say that if you are truly a small business, our pricing is much more aggressive than $2,000 per year. That said, I'd love to find a self-serve model for our website that caters to your needs. You're a huge group of customers that I'd love to find a great way to serve. :-)

So, I guess, in short, we're working on it and I'll update when I have more concrete plans of what we want to do.

So there ya have it straight from the CEO.  If you've not gotten an email yet, you will eventually.  You can view the entire forum post here

Comments

[Mike]

I tried to get a free version of OpenDNS form my tiny church of six PCs early last year and was told that they didn't even offer that for churches. They wanted us to pay $1,500/yr. I couldn't afford that so I stayed with my $60/year option.

[Voorhis]

Bunk,I'm guessing. We got the email, and we're 15 users on a good day.

[Craig Mashburn]

I would love to see a post about alternatives to OpenDNS. Both similar web services and in house hardware solutions.