Link: Futurelawyer: Nuance - Paperport 11 - Just Say No!. 
A year after my first post about Nuance and the buyout of PaperPort software (which used to be a favorite of mine), I am STILL getting negative comments about Nuance, and its shoddy or non-existent tech support. Here is the latest, from reader, Randall Carter:
"I’m
an independent software developer and IT consultant and up until now, a
happy 10 year veteran of PaperPort. I have been using the product since
it was first released and have happily upgraded with each new release,
I have even developed products for customers that incorporated
PaperPort in a paperless office system.
With the release of PaperPort 11 Nuance implemented a new policy
governing the number of activations allowed on the product after it is
installed, three activations, at which point you must contact customer
service to request activation of the product. All of this sounds like a
normal and reasonable response by a company that is trying to protect
its investment and limit or eliminate illegal copying. That is until
you have a problem, the software fails to install or uninstall, the OS
or some other application crashes your system and you have to
reinstall. At that point you are hit square in the face with
accusations and implications of improper use of the product, they stop
just short of actually accusing you of illegal copying. Like a broken
record they repeat that you are only entitled to three activations on
the license unless of course you want to purchase additional copies.
Even when I paid for technical support to trouble shoot the bugs in
their software, I had to endure accusations that somehow I was at fault
and not thier software.
I own just two computers, my workstation and server, I am constantly
tearing down and rebuilding both to create environments suitable for
development and testing of the products I create. It is not uncommon to
do this six or seven times a years. This activity combined with
misbehaving application software or operating systems and you can see
that it spend a great deal of time just trying to get a stable platform
setup on which to work.
As a software developer I support 100% what Nuance is doing to protect
their products, but as a user of their products I resent the
accusations and implications that I am using or illegally copying their
software, or that I should only be allowed to install it three times on
the same computer.
Nuance installer takes the disk signature of the computer it is running
on, sends this information to the home office where it is stored in a
database, along with other pieces of information which Nuance hinted at
but refused to disclose. I don’t know what other types of personal
information are being collected, but a disk signature by itself in not
unique enough to identify a single hardware platform. When you have
reached the three activation limit, the software refuses to activate
and run until Nuance flips a switch on their end. Adobe uses a similar
method for licenser enforcement with one difference, their installer
allows the user to deactivate the product when it is uninstalled, so
that when the user decides to reinstall on another platform, the
product can be reactivated.
I believe the company has crossed a line by refusing to activate their
product even when you can document and prove that you are incompliance
with the license and running the software on only one computer. Like
others who have posted here, I am now looking for an alternative and
recommending the same to my customers. Whatever you do, don’t upgrade!"
Hear, hear, Randall. I am still using PaperPort 10, and refuse to buy another Nuance product.
Ah, the promise of vaporware. Wndows 7, scheduled for 2010, cannot arrive too fast for those of us who passed on Vista. The vapors promise that the new Windows OS will have lower power requirements, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connectivity with cell phones and smart phones. This from the lips of none other than Bill Gates himself. Ah, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. However, methinks there is something already rotten in Denmark, and uneasy lies the head that wears the Microsoft crown.
