On 13/08/13 09:41, Mark Rogers wrote:
The reason for seeking out Plesk is that is what my friend currently uses so it should, as I understand it, make migrating the sites trivial and reduce (remove?) any learning curve for him.
Only if the version is pretty close to the same, surely? Plesk doesn't reliably import from its own exports in my experience (failure is correlated with the number of version/platform/moonphase differences), so it's a bit harsh expecting anything else to import it!
Plesk won't be around forever and shows no sign of adding support for standards-based export formats or even terms in the user interface, so that exit cost will probably keep on hanging over your friend until he pays it and it'll probably increase his costs and/or limit choice every renewal until then too. If there's a good offer, I wouldn't let the exit cost deter the recommendation.
On the other hand, Plesk's export format was something fairly simple to unpack the last time I saw it (but I don't remember what), so it may be possible that something will do a 90% import or conversion to standard formats one day.
Similar arguments against cPanel and other proprietary control panels, with the difference that I've not seen them so maybe they do use standard terms and/or formats, but they're even rarer so probably limit choice and increase costs more.
Regards,