Negotiating with Hitler - A Software Asset Manager's Reality

Recently, a practicing software asset manager (SAM) emailed me with a very typical question:

How can we get better software license terms when the software publisher refuses to permit us to negotiate the license terms?

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME???"

My answer was fairly comprehensive, but the bottom line was this:

As long as we permit the software industry players to play contract management games, we are as much at fault for onerous license terms & conditions as they are.

After multiple decades of negotiating with software industry players & their friends, I can give you one key issue that leads to a majority of costly problems for the business technology consumer:

The root cause of nearly every problem you will have with the software publisher, as long as you use their product (and well beyond) will be the terms & conditions of the license.

Learn to negotiate licenses. Learn to push back against onerous terms & conditions. Quit accepting software industry bullying as your only reality. You have as much right as the software publisher to gain mutual benefit in all contractual agreements.

The business technology consumers did not declare licensing & economic war on the software industry players. They declared war on us.

And, YES, you can quote me!

To download the full PDF document covering my observations on how the business tech consumer needs to change our approach to contract negotiations in general, and software license negotiations specifically, follow the link  HERE

It isn't going to be easy. We have to overcome nearly four decades of letting the software industry have its way with us, BUT we CAN become the initial agents for IT asset management change.

Will SAM die out with the growth of subscription-based licensing?

Well qualified SAMs will remain critical to the enterprise as licensing types evolve. Recognize that subscription-based licensing has been the bane of mainframes for decades & only began leaching into the client-server environment at the turn of the millennium.

In fact, studies have consistently found that the prohibitive costs of subscription licensing are one of the top barriers to mainframe growth. Expect the same with client-server. 

The evolution away from perpetual licensing is a result of two factors:

• Sheer greed on the part of software industry players. Gotta keep those revenue streams rolling.
• Legal precedent actions (in some enlightened countries) that have strongly suggested that, if a license is perpetual, it may also be labeled as possessed (as in owned). NOT a concept the software industry players want to take hold.

If you carry the concept one step further, the loss of perpetual licenses is merely a single step toward removing what few licensing controls enterprises have over their software. The next, and even more costly, step is SaaS.

Capable SAMs actually represent the single point of defense enterprises possess when licensing becomes more a process of cash flow than services. Unfortunately, a majority of SAMs have been trained (by SAM programs sponsored or funded by the software industry players themselves) to function tactically (responding to external impetus) rather than strategically (predictively minimizing risks while establishing long range cost reductions & deliverable value).

*(This quick discussion is a response to a post by Rajat Kumar Singh on the LinkedIn group “Software Asset Management Professionals, India.)