360°IT Blog

Why is it we continue to have the same challenges with our software suppliers that we seem to have had for the last two decades? Are we fighting a battle that simply can't be won, or are we just sitting on the sidelines whinging but not actually facing up to the issues? Surely it's time to "put up or shut up".

Consider the most common comments I hear from colleagues in what software vendors might call the "user community". First, there's the absolute annual cost of maintenance. What used to be a norm of 10-13% of initial licence cost now appears to have settled in the range of 17-22%. Are we getting more (maintenance and support) for our money or have the upfront licence costs not kept pace with other costs of doing business? Either way, we say there seems to be much less room for negotiation with our software vendors.

Really? Are we sure we understand what the maintenance covers and do we test whether it meets our business needs? And if it doesn't match our needs, are we exercising our position as customers? I doubt it. Much easier to pay up now and moan later.

Second, there's the number of licences we feel pressured to purchase. Sure, we've moved on from the antiquated 'total number of users' licence regime - now we have 'concurrent user' and 'enterprise' options, to mention just a couple. We could surely be more inventive with these concepts. Consider a truly global organisation with staff working on the same systems over many different time zones. Even with the always-on culture, it's highly unlikely all the users in Australia would need access to the system at the same time as all the UK users. So how about a licence profile that actually reflects the usage profile? Come on vendors, what can you do to respond to the 21st century customer?

Finally, are we thinking about the ongoing running costs of new software when we make the decision to purchase? I don't just mean the numbers on the maintenance invoice - what about the frequency and size of upgrades? Do we have an accurate cost of implementing these in our business? We daren't ignore an upgrade or we might find our installation is no longer supported. But we should certainly spend more time enquiring about the product road map as part of the product evaluation.

And a final plea to vendors: we know you want to guard against competitive espionage, but please find a workable way to share your product strategy with customers.

Am I being too Utopian? Is there a way to get a better vendor/customer dialogue? What do others think? And has anyone found that Holy Grail?

Denise Plumpton is non-executive director of 360°IT

Tags:

vendor relationships, software licensing, software maintenance, software upgrades, usage based licensing, product roadmaps, support, cost-cutting, negotiation

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