A Software Insider's Point of View

Who Says Support Has To Be Bundled With Maintenance?
About a decade back, vendors would offer support and maintenance as two separate line items on their contracts.  Support would run about 5 to 10% the license fee and so would maintenance.  Keep in mind, average support and maintenance fees were under 15% back then.  Here’s a [...]

Apps Users Seek Third Party Maintenance For Cost, Value, and Service
Updated surveys from inquiries, client conversations, and user group meetings show a 113.8% increase in interest in third party maintenance (3PM) services from Q3 2009 to Q1 2010 (see Figure 1).  Key factors stem from (see Figure 2.):

Continuing cost pressures. Budgets continue to be at [...]

Gains In SaaS Adoption Driven By Speed And Cost Savings…
Preliminary data from Q4 earnings data show continued traction among SaaS solutions.  Expect SaaS deployments to gain steam in 2010 as organizations finalize their SaaS apps strategies to take advantage of 7 key benefits:

Richer user experience - SaaS apps bring Web 2.0 usability to the enterprise [...]

Standard Support Returns After Much Deliberation

SAP announced today that they would be reintroducing their Standard Support offering. Customers now gain choice with a 2-tier maintenance offering. Here are the details between standard support and enterprise support.

* Standard Support Offering reintroduces at 18%. Customers seeking core bug fixes, support packages, risk mitigation, and related new functionality will have choice in staying on standard support. The program is designed for customers who seek to keep their systems up and running. Customers with CPI clauses in their contracts will want to take note - the first set of consumer price index (CPI) price increases will begin January 1st, 2012.
* Enterprise Support remains at 22%. SAP will continue to offer Enterprise Support at 22% for new customers and a ramp up for existing customers (see Figure 1). Enterprise support includes features such as best practices for IT operations, proactive monitoring and reporting, and transparency for business process performance. Customers who choose to go with Enterprise Support prior to March 15th, 2010 will be eligible for ramp up.
* Supplemental offerings still available. Other programs such as Max Attention, Safeguarding, and Product Support for Large Enterprises (PSLE) will continue to be available by choice and invitation.

DSAG project team and project leader departure could signal disagreement with methodology not SUGEN
SAP embarked on an ambitious program to prove value in its Enterprise Support fee hike last year.   As planned, SAP should announce the results for the first set of SUGEN KPI’s in early December.  However, two key SUGEN KPI project sponsors [...]

Building Innovation With And Around Your SAP Environment
Location: Manchester CentralAuditorium
Date:23/11/2009
Start Time: 16:25
End Time: 17:00
Speaker: R “Ray” Wang
Company: Partner with Altimeter Group
Keynote summary:

Pace of change continues to increase in market forces, work dynamics, business models, and pace of technology adoption.
Innovation is essential in this market.
There’s a tonne of innovation at SAP. Management and politics keep it [...]

SAP users in UK and Ireland remain equally skeptical about SAP

(Photos by R Wang & Insider Associates, LLC.   Copyright © 2009 All rights reserved.)
The SAP user group hosted its annual event.  Conversations with 37 clients reflect the following broad trends in the UK and Ireland:

SAP users remain skeptical about benefits promised by SAP [...]

Free Software Gimmicks From Some On-Premise Vendors Only Address The License Cost Issue

Recently, readers and clients have been approached by on-premise vendors offering free software modules to incentivize new license purchases.  However, free should not be confused with the Open Source (i.e. Freeware) movement, where source code is provided with minimal copyright restrictions.  Free should [...]

Vendor Sales Reps Keep Using An Age Old Excuse Out Of Habit
Many organizations start their Q4 software maintenance renewals process in September.  This has led to a flurry of emails and phone calls about revenue recognition (a.k.a. “rev-rec”) rules for software maintenance contracts.   Apparently, both customers and vendor sales reps suffer from mass confusion [...]

Potential Announcement of * Siemens cancellation represents a shift in mood by one of SAP’s most loyal customers
What’s been rumored for the past few months has now publicly been confirmed discussed.  Golem.de (Babelfish Translation in English) *Wiwo.de,(Wirtschaftswoche the German equivalent of BusinessWeek) (Babelfish Translation in English) reports that Siemens says SAP Tschüß (i.e. ciao, cheers, [...]

Labor Day (US Holiday) traditionally marks the end of summer BBQ’s, the beginning of the fall conference season, and yes, the time to begin a review of your software maintenance contacts that expire end of year.   As clients prepare for this seasonal ritual, a few trends in 2009 should set the stage for negotiations:

Continued [...]

In the first step of the original seven simple steps to successfully negotiate software contracts, the key is to have the right team in place.  To refresh everyone’s memory from the March 8th, 2004 post the details for Step 1 are:
Step 1: Ensure that the right team is in place

Inputs:  Organizational chart and agreement on [...]

Many user groups currently meet the basic requirements…
Today’s independent and vendor sponsored user groups serve a key role in building community among a common interest group.  Typical mission and objectives often include:

Creating an environment to share information and best practices
Exposing issues and limitations with a vendor’s product and partner solutions
Soliciting member feedback and concerns about [...]

Declining demand and diminishing output increase the pressure for enterprises to reduce their software license maintenance costs.  As part of a larger enterprise apps strategy, shelfware reduction provides an area for significant cost savings.   However, shelfware reduction is often hard to achieve because many vendors impose:

Enterprise wide agreements. These “all you can eat” agreements incentivize [...]

FORWARD AND COMMENTARY
“An Enterprise Software Licensee’s Bill of Rights (LB0R) V2″ brings the 10th installment of an on-going series to provide clients with insight on how to better align their packaged apps strategies.  Version 2 of the LBoR updates the original groundbreaking list of 36 best practices for software licensing and pricing and provides a [...]

In the past 2 weeks, emails from 31 software insider readers highlight a growing and concerning trend with support and maintenance contracts.  Vendors concerns about support and maintenance contract retentions has led to new initiatives to consolidate contracts.  At first glance, this may appear to be proactive and beneficial to customers.  In fact, common rationale [...]

Infor announced two new maintenance options for its customers today. These actions represent a proactive approach to provide its customers with new ownership models.  The key offerings include:

Flex Upgrade: customers move to the latest application version, no change to existing maintenance and support costs, little or no license fees
POV: Support and maintenance fees should often [...]

(Photo: Rimini Street movable billboard outside SAPPHIRE 09.   Courtesy of Rimini Street.  All rights reserved)
Almost one year after Rimini Street announced its intention to provide third party maintenance, on May 11th, 2009, the ground breaking support services provider announced that it had signed its first SAP clients and launched immediate availability of its support [...]

More details have emerged on the actual 10 or 11 KPI’s that SUGEN and SAP have agreed to as well as the SAP’s targets for showing value.  To start with, here are the main KPI’s for each category:

SUGEN KPI’S
Business Continuity

Increased business solution availability
Reduced amount of work related to all SAP incidents (including reduced [...]

Since SAP’s announcement of its single tier Enterprise Support plan last July, customers have continued to express dissatisfaction.   In response to such complaints, the SAP User Group Executive Network (SUGEN) of 12 SAP user groups and SAP have been engaging in discussions around the value derived from this new offering.  This morning SAP [...]

FORWARD AND COMMENTARY
“Shape Your Apps Strategy To Reflect New SaaS Licensing and Pricing Trends” represent the seventh report in an on-going series to provide clients with insight on how to better align their packaged apps strategies.  As more and more clients seek SaaS solutions as options to pipe in innovation and potentially control costs, clients [...]

ZDNet Japan Business Applications Conference
Bellesalle Yaesu, Tokyo, Japan
June 10, 2008  13:00-18:00
R “Ray” Wang
Keynote Speech: Insights Into Building A Recession Proof Apps Strategy

ZDNet Japan ビジネス・アプリケーション カンファレンス

不況だからって、アプリケーションを止められますか？

いうまでもなく、不況です。不況はITコストの削減を生みます。しかし、いまや、ITは止められないばかりか、進化を続けなければなりません。
企業は情報システムへの投資をこれまで通り続けられない状況にあります。こうした状況においてこそ、情報システムを真剣に考え直すべきです。本イベントでは、そのなかでも、最もビジネスに近い層であるビジネスアプリケーションについて議論します。
小さく導入したアプリケーションを統制・連携するためのアーキテクチャーとしてはSOA、ビジネスの効率化をITに実装するためのBPM、所有から使用への新たな選択肢として脚光を浴びるSaaS…… 不況下でも企業が情報システムにできることはたくさんあるのです。

» 来場事前登録はこちら

開催概要

名称
ZDNet Japan ビジネス・アプリケーション カンファレンス
開催日時
2009年6月10日（水）  12:30開場  13:00開演
場所
ベルサール八重洲 [会場について]
参加費
無料（事前登録制）
定員
300人
対象
CIO（情報に関する資源の統括、戦略立案、実行する責任者の方）／IT部門のマネージャ／業務でERP、CRM等アプリケーションに携わる方
特典
「来場者アンケート」にご回答いただいた方にQuoカードをプレゼントいたします。
また、抽選で200名の方に「日経コンピュータ」を6ヶ月分プレゼントいたします。

セッション一覧

12:30
開場

13:00
|
14:00
基調講演

■不況に打ち勝つアプリケーション戦略を構築するための秘訣
ア プリケーション担当者は現在、新しいビジネスモデルの台頭、経済危機、労働力の変化、技術の進歩などのさまざまな変化に日々直面しています。特に、今日の 世界的な経済不況下においては、より企業のビジネス戦略に沿ったアプリケーション戦略を構築することが求められています。コンプライアンスや業務の効率化 は常に考えなければならない事項ですが、それだけでなく、企業が持続可能な変化を実現するためには、不況に打ち勝つことができるアプリケーション戦略が必 要です。今こそ、ビジネスプロセスをより効率化する機会を探し、最も効果的なテクノロジー戦略を選択し、ベンダーとの関係を見直す必要があります。今回の 講演では、アプリケーション担当者が今行うべきこと、つまり現在のアプリケーション戦略を最適化するための方策を５つのステップで解説します。それを実施 することにより、経費削減だけでなく、将来利益をもたらすビジネスへの投資を行う資金を生み出すことができるでしょう。
アジェンダ：
・ 企業が克服しなければならない４つのチャレンジ
・ 不況に打ち勝つアプリケーション戦略を構築するための５つのステップ
１．不況下におけるビジネスをサポートするアプリケーション戦略を構築する
２．持続可能な変化を実現できる組織を作る
３．コモディティ化されたプロセスと特殊なプロセスにおいて効率化の機会を探す
４．効果的なテクノロジー戦略（SaaS、SOA、BPM）を選択する
５．ベンダーとの関係を見直す

Ray Wang氏
フォレスターリサーチ バイスプレジデント兼プリンシパル・アナリスト
[プロフィール]
レ イ・ワンはフォレスターリサーチのバイスプレジデント兼プリンシパル・アナリスト。グローバル企業から中小企業に至るまで、企業のビジネスプロセスおよび アプリケーション戦略についてリサーチを行い、実行可能なアドバイスを提供している。2008年には、彼の経験から導かれる深い洞察力とIT知識、中立的 なアドバイス、そしてお客様を常に第一に考える姿勢が評価され、アナリスト・リレーションズをサポートする非営利団体IIAR（Institute of Industry AnalystRelations） が行った調査により、“アナリスト・オブ・ザ・イヤー（Analystof the Year）”　に選ばれた。

14:00
|
14:50
講演

■日本IBM
（出演者調整中）

15:00
|
15:50
講演

■SoftwareAG
（出演者調整中）

15:55
|
16:45
講演

■依頼中

16:50
|
17:50
講演

■依頼中

※プログラムは、予告なしに内容や順番などを変更することがございます。ご了承ください。

参加申込み

本 イベントへのご参加には、CNET_IDの登録が必要です。CNET_IDご登録時にご記入いただきました登録者情報は、シーネットネットワークスジャパ ン個人情報保護方針の下で適切に取り扱われ、当セミナーに関するご連絡、およびシーネットネットワークスジャパンよりご提供するメンバーサービスに利用さ れます。また、本セミナーにお申し込みをされたお客様の情報は協賛企業（ソフトウェアAG、日本IBM、日経BP）に提供され、各社より製品やサービスに [...]

Recession creates an opportunity for frank vendor - client discussion

A fine equilibrium exists between the vendor’s success and a client’s success.  Its time for the enterprise software industry to have a frank and honest conversation about software costs and vendor business models. To date, comparing cost among different vendors remains difficult as license, maintenance, implementation, [...]

Maintenance costs represent a major part of the software budget and the largest growing source of revenue for software vendors.   In fact, an aggregation of the past four quarters of software vendor financial results definitively demonstrates double digit declines in new license revenue, even more exacerbated by the evils of currency flux from the [...]

A common question asked by readers of this blog is when should vendor contract negotiations be led by a domain expert and when should this be led by a procurement professional?  As the complexity of the technology topology increases, expect a multitude of domain experts in roles such as application specialists, business process experts, enterprise [...]