The Small Print
Terms & Conditions
- Our business is to:
- Supply licences
- Provide Technical Support, and
- Offer Training Courses, both live and by video
- Each of the progams can be supplied as: Note that delivery of software is by download, with serial numbers supplied by Email.
- Pricing for Fixed and Floating licences is on our Licence Calculator. Campus-wide Site licences are priced in US dollars based on the FTE (full time equivalent) student number; pricing is available on request.
We honour any price we quote for 7 days. - Software licences are permanent; the software will typically work, without further payment, until Windows or the Mac operating system (as applicable) has gone through two complete cycles. In 2021 it was still possible to run Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.5 and v6.0 on Windows Vista (released in 2006).
- Updates of the Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook software have been released from time to time at the discretion of MacKichan Software:
- Minor updates (eg. v6.0.28 to v6.0.29) were usually issued free of charge
- Major upgrades (eg. v5.5 to v6.0) were chargeable, but optional. Chargeable upgrades cost around 35% of the price of a new licence.
- We offer 30-day payment terms to UK customers in good standing for payment by BACS/electronic transfer to our UK bank account:
- We do not usually chase for payment until 45 days
- Between 45 and 60 days we will chase payment, usually with no loss of privileges
- If your invoice remains unpaid after 60 days you will lose privileges (eg. you will be moved to Category C)
- After 90 days we will automatically initiate proceedings in Court for the recovery of the debt
- We reserve the right to decline to supply software, and to remove users from our database (including from eligibility for Technical Support), if necessary.
- We offer a free 30-day demo for both v5.5 and v6.0 of Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook in advance, and so refunds are almost never requested.
However, our refund policy is to refund in full as long as:- It is within 30 days of your Order, and
- You have not Activated/Registered the permanent serial number.
- We provide complimentary Unbeatable Expert Technical Support to our registered users by Email, for current versions of our software:
- A version is current until the second anniversary of the release of the following version (ie. two years after the next major upgrade, as in 5b above)
- Complimentary Technical Support is subject to our Fair Use policy
- The Technical Support turnaround time is 24 hours for Standard customers (Category B). Users with a poor payment record (60 days), or who make excessive Technical Support demands beyond our Fair Use policy, will be moved to Category C with a Technical Support turnaround time of 7 days.
- Premier Technical Support:
- We offer the Annual Maintenance Agreement to selected Universities and companies at the time of initial purchase or upgrade. This option is particularly recommended for multiple-user network Floating Licences (where it is the norm: the Floating Licence installation is non-trivial) and campus-wide Site Licences (where it is mandatory).
- We provide Technical Support to individual users around the world (including those who did not buy their systems from us) through the Individual Annual Maintenance scheme.
- For customers with specialised requirements not covered by complimentary Technical Support or an Annual Maintenance Agreement, we offer the dedicated Support Contract.
- Our Technical expertise is also available as paid Consultancy Time or as our 5-hour Support Package.
- Any dispute will be resolved in the English courts.
Fair Use of Technical Support
- We are pleased to provide our Unbeatable Expert Technical Support for individual registered users free of charge, resourced from the profit on sales
- We prefer not to impose rules and quotas on our provision of Technical Support beyond expecting Fair Use:
- Most users make demands on our Technical Support occasionally (two or three times a year) or never; a few do so slightly more regularly
- Some users make more extensive demands on our resources, but this is viable when accompanied by multiple quality referrals leading to further sales
- Other users pay for our Training Course, which reduces their need for Technical Support
- We do not regard it as Fair Use for you:
- Never to make quality referrals using our Facebook page, and
- Decline to obtain Training, and
- Continue to make significant demands on our Technical Support (several issues per year, requiring double-digit Emails from us) – in effect obtaining Training by Email free of charge.
- Beyond the complimentary Expert Technical Support described here, recourse to our technical expertise is available as paid Consultancy Time, 5-hour Support Package or Support Contract.
Spam
- We don't like spam
- We are frustrated by it ourselves
- We will never rent or sell your contact details to a third party
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- Those on our mailing list (database) gave their consent to receive Email from us at the point of requesting a serial number for our software – either the free 30-day trial or a permanent licence.
- We perform some minimal processing of your data in pursuing our legitimate interests of marketing and administration.
- Any time you wish to withdraw your consent, please just send us an Email request and we will remove you from our mailing list faster than you can say General Data Protection Regulation (or at least within 24 hours of receipt). The simplest way to do this is by clicking the Unsubscribe link which has been at the bottom of all our automated mailings since 2009 (from late 2014 those mailings to you were ready-configured with the Email address to be removed).
- For those with permanent licences, your serial number and computer ID are linked to your Email address and stored in America on the servers of MacKichan Software. The licence file (license.lic) on your computer/s, containing your serial number and computer ID, is located:
- For version 6.0: In one of the places given in our December 2015 mailing (Item 5)
- For version 5.x: In the \licenses\ sub-folder of your installation folder (eg. c:\sw[p]55\licenses\license.lic)
- Our database, stored securely in the UK, typically records your name & contact information, and the serial numbers of systems you have bought from us or are responsible for – together with the date we added you, the source of the contact and the category of Tech. Support you qualify for.
- We use external data processing services only for sending out our mailings. We have never rented or sold – nor will we ever rent or sell – your contact details to a third party.
- For any GDPR questions, please Email our Designated Data Protection officer (DPO) on gdpr@sciword.co.uk.
Cookies
We use cookies – of course we do! – to give you the best experience on our website. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual.
If you continue without changing your settings, we’ll assume that you are happy to receive cookies on our website.
However, if you would like to, you can change your cookie settings at any time (Start – Control Panel – Internet Options – Privacy).
Last Updated: 15th August 2023
(+44) 0345 766 0340
(+44) 0345 603 9443