Premise Dear Motorola, Please fix www.premisesystems.com

Motorola Premise
123

123

Senior Member
FYI

The following sites www.premisesystems.com (source for Premise software) and www.premisesystems.info (original Premise forum) have been inaccessible since late last week.

I notified Motorola by sending a single email to [email protected] and two messages to www.motorola.com/feedback. I sent two Feedback messages because the first one did not result in a reply. I did receive a reply for my second message but it was not what I expected; they claimed I was spamming them. I believe the Brits have an apt term to describe how I felt: "gobsmacked".

I replied that they've misunderstood my attempts to bring a serious problem to their attention. Their subsequent response was an apology and an assurance that their "Internet team" had been notified and would "address this issue and come to a solution as soon as possible".

Go Internet team go!
 
I tried a couple of times to contact the webmaster to no avail. So I logged a ticket through support. Here's the replay.

Dear Kaz Zboray,

Thank you for contacting Motorola e-mail support, we appreciate your interest in our products.

Regarding your concern, we regret to inform you that we do not support this products through this channel. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. We suggest getting in contact with the manufacture of these products for further assistance.

We hope that you find this information useful and look forward to assisting you in the future.

For information about Motorola products and services, please visit us at http://www.hellomoto.com/

Thank you for contacting Motorola e-mail support.

Best Regards,
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I figured I'd keep trying. Good to know I'm not the only one bugging them.

Kaz
 
The reply Kaz received was virtually the same as the one I got when I asked them to consider re-opening the original Premise forum. Instead of a no, maybe, or yes, I got the unexpected "You're talking to the wrong department. Try elsewhere."

The last reply I received indicated that although my request's status may be flagged as "closed" I could always inquire about its status using the request's ID code. Huh?

My last message asked for the "Internet team's" progress and the projected date for fixing the problem. No response yet.

I realize they have no obligation to maintain a web-site for a discontinued product. However, given Motorola's vast resources, it isn't asking for much to reserve one old PC for Premise.
 
This is the risk one takes when using a discontinued product. I'm having the same problem with Axis concerning their mobile client, it was discontinued and they just don't want to hear anything about it. I have since found another solution... ;)

I see your point of not taking a lot of resources just to keep a web page opened, but it does require someone to take time away from other (supported) projects. Is Premise's use possibly linked or support any other Motorola product that is currently supported? Maybe try the avenue of "it could lead to potential sales/use of xxxx product" produced by your company.
 
In this case I think the only hope is for the remaining community to make a lot of noise. If 123 and I are the only one's asking to have the site restored, well then from a business prospective I would have to agree it makes no sense. However if a couple of hundred people complain, then it might require a re-evaluation.

Kaz
 
kzboray said:
In this case I think the only hope is for the remaining community to make a lot of noise. If 123 and I are the only one's asking to have the site restored, well then from a business prospective I would have to agree it makes no sense. However if a couple of hundred people complain, then it might require a re-evaluation.

Kaz
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Well I've tried too. I'm guessing though that the site was taken down as 'discontinued' rather than just an error. The server will no doubt be wiped and recommissioned to another purpose. If it isn't rectified asap I'm thinking it's lost forever. It really needs someone who has a contact email or telephone number of someone / dept within Motorola who handled Premise

K
 
I'm inclined to agree with Couchpotatoe. Athough Motorola has not indicated the site has been decommissioned, the fact remains it has been inaccessible since May 1st.

SamGreco and I have copies of the Premise software and have posted it for others to download. The real loss is the accumulated knowledge stored in the original forum. Some of the trickier bits I've learned about Premise came from reading the original forum. It also contained a wealth of user-contributed Modules (and I have many of them).

In January, I corresponded with Premise's chief architect and I learned about the talented people who created Premise. He mentioned that one of the team members still works at Motorola. I will try to contact him and see if he can either resurrect the site or donate the forum content.
 
I am posting this to quell the rumors of the Premise website demise. I currently manage some of the former members of the Premise software team at Motorola.

Unfortunately, due to corporate restructuring and business climate, our team is working in areas other than home automation. While we are still personally interested in that area, it is not a current business focus for Motorola.

Due to legal encumbrances and support issues and costs, the Premise website has been discontinued. I understand that the core value of the website is currently in the archived forums content and we are looking for ways to rehost that portion of the website. However, the Premise product is no longer an active Motorola product and is technically considered past "end-of-life". The direction from our Corporate IT has been to shut down the website and remove the domain name from active service. However, the domain names of premisesystems.com and premisesystems.info are currently considered Motorola assets having been acquired with the rest of the PremiseSystem assets.

The forums content is stored in a SQL Server database and uses the CommunityServer software platform. We are considering how we can "donate" the forums content to the user community but need to make sure that there are no licensing or copyright issues involved in re-distributing that content.

The current network link and physical server that hosts the content is being repurposed. The content is being archived. I am looking into rehosting on a temporary basis, the current forums content until it can find a new home. Be on the lookout for www.premisesystems.net.

There have been questions raised about open-sourcing the source code to Premise. There are several legal problems with this. For one thing, some of the device drivers that were created and shipped with Premise were written using confidential agreements between Premise and the hardware maker. Thus, the source code to those drivers can't be open sourced. Other source code in the core product is tied up in patents issues and can't yet be separated. It is a "side project" of mine to help Motorola figure out a plan, if any, for cleaning this up.

I have been quietly monitoring this forum since automation is one of my personal activities. I helped SamG (?) put the original Yahoo link on the Premise forums.
 
premisesystems said:
I have been quietly monitoring this forum since automation is one of my personal activities. I helped SamG (?) put the original Yahoo link on the Premise forums.
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That would have been me :blink:

It's good to hear that someone there still cares about it. I, of course, would love to see it open-sourced. I hope you can figure out a way. Seems a waste to have it just fizzle out. There are still things that I think Premise does better than anything else. But it's getting rather "long in the tooth" without core updates.

Thanks for trying.
 
premisesystems said:
...
the Premise website has been discontinued. I understand that the core value of the website is currently in the archived forums content and we are looking for ways to rehost that portion of the website.
...
I am looking into rehosting on a temporary basis, the current forums content until it can find a new home. Be on the lookout for www.premisesystems.net.

There have been questions raised about open-sourcing the source code to Premise. There are several legal problems with this.
...
It is a "side project" of mine to help Motorola figure out a plan, if any, for cleaning this up.
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Thank you, PremiseSystems!

I've been soliciting assistance, and an official response, from Motorola and this is the first good news I've heard. OK, maybe not great news but it is reassuring to learn that someone at Motorola continues to care for Premise's welfare. The Premise community salutes you.

Resurrecting the old forum content is vital to the community's health. Many of the original contributors are no longer active participants yet their knowledge is preserved for new Premise users. I look forward to learning more when www.premisesystems.net goes live.

Converting Premise to "open-source" sounds like an uphill battle. If we're talking about championing lost causes, why not pull out all the stops and resurrect Premise? I learned about some of Premise's "future features", notably a new UI designer, that were shelved when 3.0 was canned. Frankly, Premise 3.0 would be a contender even in today's marketplace. If it used current web-technologies to generate its UI, it would be astounding.

Back to reality ... many thanks for your efforts and I'll be a very happy Premise user when the old forums are available again!
 
123 said:
Converting Premise to "open-source" sounds like an uphill battle. If we're talking about championing lost causes, why not pull out all the stops and resurrect Premise? I learned about some of Premise's "future features", notably a new UI designer, that were shelved when 3.0 was canned. Frankly, Premise 3.0 would be a contender even in today's marketplace. If it used current web-technologies to generate its UI, it would be astounding.

Back to reality ... many thanks for your efforts and I'll be a very happy Premise user when the old forums are available again!
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I would like to see Motorola sell off Premise so it could evolve it to something even better, it still is a pretty good program as is though.
 
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