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Published on November 25, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

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:


  1. Order arimidex without prescription, Pace of change continues to increase in market forces, work dynamics, business models, and pace of technology adoption.

  2. Innovation is essential in this market.

  3. There's a tonne of innovation at SAP. Iowa IA, Management and politics keep it from coming out.

  4. Users need to tap into innovations from SAP and also help SAP prioritize what should go to market.

  5. Users need to know what you want to do before you even talk to SAP.  Get your act together.

  6. Use the user group to build the linkages to SAP.  This is a better, more productive approach, ordering casodex without prescription, District of Columbia DC D.C., especially if you are not a top 400 customer with private access.

  7. SAP isn't bad or good. You can't view them that way, Arizona AZ Ariz.. Ordering epogen online without prescription, Management is confused at the moment on leadership, direction, North Dakota ND, Ordering arimidex online without prescription, and innovation so figure out what you need from them early and fast.

  8. If SAP can't do it, you don't have time to wait for them, South Carolina SC S.C., αγοράζουν φτηνά cytoxan, especially if there's no commitment. SaaS is an option, ordering gleevec overnight delivery, Idaho ID, other providers are out there.  Come back to them later when they figure it out.

  9. The pace of change is too fast. Technology adoption too slow, order arimidex without prescription. Companies need to keep moving in innovation.

  10. Invest in innovation even if it hurts, Nebraska NE Nebr.. Købe evista, Find money to optimize and pay for this.  There are a number of vendors that can assist.


Members of the SAP UK &I user group who would like a copy of the presentation can contact David Stanley, Vice President of Business Development and Sales at david@altimetergroup.com for copies.   Your member number will be required for proof, order cytoxan from canada. Cheap capecitabine tablet,

Video Highlights - Exposing SAP Innovation


Courtesy of Dennis Howlett

Video Highlights - On ESME vs Salesforce.com Chatter


Courtesy of Dennis Howlett.

Video Highlights - 5 Recent Failures of SAP


Courtesy of Dennis Howlett, epogen ordine on-line. Cheapest cytoxan in the world, Copyright © 2009 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC, Acheter en ligne casodex. Acheter gleevec discount, All rights reserved.

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Event Report: UK & Ireland User Group Conference 2009


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Order Zometa Online Cheap

Published on November 24, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

SAP users in UK and Ireland remain equally skeptical about SAP

Order zometa online cheap, (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 due to lack of delivery over the past 5 years (See Figure 1.)

  • SAP has spent more time reaching out to customers to understand pain points

  • Knowledge gaps continue to exist between what SAP users know about SAP and what SAP sales people communicate to clients

  • A show of hands in the audience validates conversations that SAP users have not adopted NetWeaver, order iressa without prescription, Comprar gleevec barato, Duet, ByD, kjøpe gleevec, Arimidex farmacia a buon mercato, Solution Manager, and Enterprise Support.

  • Many customers have budget but need trusted advice as to what is possible in including SAP in their future roadmaps

  • Customers seek innovation from SAP but find a difficult time understanding what SAP has to offer

  • Many customers have turned to other providers for innovations via SaaS or cost optimization


Figure 1, Oregon OR Ore.. Ostaa halvalla zometa, What SAP Customers Want

What SAP users want from SAP


The bottom line.

SAP users and their user groups have a unique opportunity to put in the right infrastructure to engage in productive partnership with SAP.  The management team has shifted their outlook.  Early signs indicate a more customer focused approach may be on the way.  Customers seeking to innovate within their SAP investment should ask hard questions about what is in the SAP Labs portfolio.  User groups will play a key role in helping to prioritize future SAP product road map investments.  Users and their user groups should push for frameworks that monitor customer reuqests and increase transparency in the prioritization process. Customers can not allow SAP to squander any more of the 10's of billions in maintenance fee and license fees "invested" with SAP, Hawaii HI. Arimidex online cheap, Your POV.

If you get a chance, let us know:


  • Which SAP products do you use?

  • When will you migrate to BS7 or ECC 6.0?

  • What do you think about the progress on SUGEN KPI's

  • Are you considering alternatives to SAP

  • Do you feel SAP is innovating fast, buy zometa without prescription, Iowa IA, ok, or slow enough?


Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org, ordering cytoxan without prescription. Cheap iressa no prescription,

Copyright © 2009 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC, Ohio OH. Order casodex no rx, All rights reserved.

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Buy Epogen

Published on October 12, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Connect.  Collaborate.  Innovate. Buy epogen, Welcome to the first of many Altimeter Group research reports.  Before you dive deep into the Customer Bill of Rights: Software-as-a-Service report, we wanted to share with you a bit about the research process and how we work within the community. Ordering cytoxan online cheap,


  • Connect.  We strive to bring new people together and share our knowledge.  Knowledge has no value unless others can put it to use.

  • Collaborate.  We believe in open collaboration with the market and ecosystem of thought leaders, influencers, αγοράσετε evista, Ordering arimidex online cheap, solution providers, and implementation experts.  In collaboration do we foster new relationships and opportunities to solve client problems.

  • Innovate.  We are thinking about what's next.  SaaS deployments and web-based solutions represent the future and we'll be looking for the next set of innovations.


Customer Bill of Rights - Software-as-a Service

Enjoy this report, ordering gleevec online. Buy generic epogen, It's been placed in Scribd for shared use.

AG Customer Bill of Rights - SaaS - Live

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Creative Commons License
Customer Bill of Rights: Software as a Service by R "Ray" Wang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, buy epogen.
Based on a work at blog.softwareinsider.org, kjøpe billig casodex. Indiana IN Ind., Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://blog.softwareinsider.org.

Continue The Discussion On Linked IN

We've crepic_logo_119x32ated a group that you can join now that will carry the conversation further.  Sign up now and stay tuned for when the report goes out.  Look for more Bill of Rights to come. Customer Bill of Rights

Your POV.

Want to be part of the collaborative research process?  Got ideas for topics that should be reports?  Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org, cheap gleevec. Maine ME Me.,

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Order Zometa

Published on October 8, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

This post has been cross posted on the Enterprise Advocates blog

A New Way Of Creating Research - Collaborative Input And Review Order zometa, Some time early next week, we (i.e. Altimeter Group's Jeremiah Owyang and I) will be publishing a Customer Bill of Rights - Software-as-a-Service.  Through the generous input of 57 collaborators and organizations, kopen goedkope cytoxan, New York NY N.Y., this document will serve as a reference, checklist, Connecticut CT Conn., Acquistare a buon mercato gleevec, and point of discussion with SaaS vendors for prospects and clients who have made the decision to begin a SaaS deployment.

Why A Customer Bill of Rights for SaaS, casodex ordine on-line. Kentucky KY Ky.,
SaaS deployments have entered the heart of the business and now deserve to be treated with all the rigor and due diligence of on-premise licensed software. Client - vendor relationships in SaaS are perpetual and it is imperative that these agreements provide a chance for a new slate, köpa billiga capecitabine. CIO's, CMO's, LOB execs, procurement managers, and other organizational leads should ensure that the mistakes they made in licensed software aren't blindly carried over, order zometa. Billig iressa apotek, The SaaS Bill of Rights (BoR) provides a tool for clients and vendors to change the tenor of contract negotiations from subservient to equal partnership.  Though not all these rights may be provided by the SaaS vendors today, these rights represent the best practices in over 250 SaaS contracts and reflect the general spirit and intent of most SaaS vendor's executive management teams, köpa rabatterade capecitabine. Billige zometa Apotheke, Thanks To Creative Commons For A Great Legal Platform For Collaboration

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Props To Collaboration And Great Ecosystem Input Order zometa, The Customer Bill of Rights: Software-as-a-Service report could not have been produced without the generous input from these individual influencers and the following vendors who have shown a keen interest in transforming the client-vendor relationship. Please keep in mind, buy gleevec overnight delivery, Arizona AZ Ariz., input into this document does not represent a complete endorsement of these rights in total by the individuals or vendors listed in this report.


The Thanks List: Star Influencer And Guru Inputs
Nenshad Bardoliwalla
Naomi Bloom, order evista from canada, Bloom and Wallace
Kevin Dobbs, Montclair Advisors
Bob Evans, TechWeb
Dennis Howlett, Enterprise Irregulars
Phil Fersht, Horses For Sources
Christian Gherorghe
Paul Greenberg, The 56 Group
James Governor, Red Monk
Erin Kinikin
Esteban Kolsky
Amy Konary, IDC
Michael Krigsman, Asuret
Frank Scavo, Computer Economics
Josh Weinberger, CRM Magazine


The Thanks List: SaaS and Solution Vendor Input

Agresso
Appiro
Boomi
Blue Wolf
Cisco Systems
CODA
Demand Media
Epicor
Everest Software
Flexera
GetSatisfaction
HelpStream
IBM
Infor
Informatica
Infosys
Intacct
Intuit
Jive Software
KickApps
Lithium
M-Factor
Microsoft
Mzinga
NetSuite
Panaya Inc
Patni
Pervasive Software
RightNow Technologies
Rimini Street
Salesforce.com
SAP
Social Text
SoftBrands
SuccessFactors
Sugar CRM
Telligent
Tenrox
Ultimate Software
UserVoice
VMWare
Workday


Continue The Discussion On Linked IN

We've crepic_logo_119x32ated a group that you can join now that will carry the conversation further.  Sign up now and stay tuned for when the report goes out.  Look for more Bill of Rights to come. Customer Bill of Rights


Your POV.

Want to be part of the collaborative research process?  Got ideas for topics that should be reports?  Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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News Analysis: Siemens Cancels SAP Maintenance Contract

Published on September 12, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang
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, bye) in its September 12th posting.
According to the translated report, "Siemens is one of the largest SAP customers, reports the business magazine economic week (Wiwo): Over 160.000 Siemens coworkers used the software of SAP. For maintenance, to the support and regular software actualizations belong, require SAP 17 per cent of the license costs. For Siemens costs add up after analysts estimations each year on a middle two digit amount of millions."
*What should be made clear here is that Siemens appears to have submitted its cancellation papers to SAP.  However, the company will most likely not be doing a rip and replace of its core systems. It's just looking at alternatives for SAP maintenance or even maybe a better counter offer from SAP. Third party maintenance vendors emerge from the woodwork Of note, IBM, and HCL have been listed with Rimini Street as contenders for this third party maintenance (3PM) market.  SAP's system integrators traditionally have shied away or have been rumored to be given strong signals not to provide alternative support options for their vendor partners.  To date, this has led to just one public offering from Rimini Street.  While the process requires significant investment in engineering and support resources, the contenders each bring significant capabilities to the table.  And according to some customers, several other providers have already been providing third party maintenance services for SAP in EMEA. The bottom line - economic pressures will bring more enterprise software customers to consider (3PM) Almost all SAP customers have end of year maintenance renewal terms.  As these organizations review their maintenance contracts going into 2010, it will be important to consider the role of third party maintenance in decisions.  Customers seek strategies to free funding up so they can address economic shortfalls and/or invest in innovation. But don't expect vendors such as SAP to back off without a fight.  Beware of some tactics some vendors have used to cut customers off from the third party maintenance option:
  • Do not give away your third party maintenance rights. Review your contracts with your legal team for such similar anti competitive language.  Validate any suspicious terminology with the vendor
  • Avoid offers by sales reps to bundle contracts. Once bundled, you will lose the ability to choose what parts of the relationship you wish to change
  • Say "NO" to contracts that tie upgrade rights to current status of maintenance payments. Some blog readers report a new tactic emerging in the field where even after downloading upgrades to a perpetual license, some vendors are claiming you do not have such rights unless you are current on maintenance.  This flies in the face of the spirit and intent of a perpetual license.
  • Eliminate gag rule clauses in your contracts. Make sure you retain the freedom to work with third parties to assist in contract negotiations.  You'll also want to have the right to discuss some benchmarking with peers and other user group members.
Your POV Is your enterprise software contract up for renewal?  How has your vendor treated you to date?  Do you need assistance with negotiating such contacts?  Wonder why Neelie Kroes and the EU ( yes this is an election year) or the US Anti-trust team have not stood up for your consumer rights yet?  What are your user groups doing to assist you?  Post your comment here or reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.  Put the power of expert contract negotiation advice to work or drop us a line.
Related posts 20090912 Deal Architect - Vinnie Mirchandani "Don't Cry For Me Germany" 20090912 Irregular Enterprise - Dennis Howlett "Siemens Cans SAP Support"
Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved. *Slight changes were made with some factual review input from multiple sources. (18:30 GMT - 8:00)

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Tuesday’s Tip: Note To Self – Start Renegotiating Your Q4 Software Maintenance Contracts Now!

Published on September 1, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang
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 weakness in the economy. Vendor revenues continue to decline as new license sales drop and vendors become more dependent on support and maintenance revenues.  Customers looking to upgrade or commit to new apps can expect vendors to be more generous on the support and maintenance front.
  • Dated and inflexible architecture of legacy applications. Change in business models, workplace dynamics, and macro economic conditions apply new pressures to aging systems purchased pre-Y2K.  Customers seek paths to upgrade but are limited by economic pressures.
  • Vendor awareness of customer discontent with existing support offerings. Customers now seek to understand what value vendors deliver in their support and maintenance agreements.  Many vendors have proactively responded by improving service or making appropriate concessions.
  • Growing acceptance of third party maintenance (3PM) options. Vendors such as Rimini Street and Spinnaker have proven to the market that they can deliver 3PM to an array of ERP applications.  Cutting maintenance fees by 50% or more can free up funds for innovation or pay for the next upgrade.
Align your apps strategy before negotiating contracts - do your homework Contract negotiations strategy should be planned in conjunction with an overall apps strategy.  Begin the process 2 to 3 months in advance.  Make sure the teams have the proper incentives in place.  Take the following steps as you prepare for your maintenance renewals: The bottom line - follow the seven simple steps to successfully negotiating software contracts.
  1. Ensure that the right team is in place
  2. Identify the organization’s key business drivers
  3. Determine the product adoption plan
  4. Consider contract strategy implications of the software ownership life cycle
  5. Align contract strategy with product adoption
  6. Identify leverage points
  7. Prioritize key contract objectives
Your POV Looking to hear your best practices with software maintenance contract renewals.
  • Is your maintenance contract up for renewal at the end of the year?
  • Do you need help putting a strategy in place?
  • Have you conducted an apps strategy assessment?
  • Would you like to break free from your vendor but don't know what options exist?
Post your comment here or reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org. Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Monday’s Musings: Users Now Expect More Advocacy From Their User Groups

Published on August 3, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang
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 vendor and other solution providers
  • Leveraging collective power to influence the product road map of the vendor and other solution providers
  • Facilitating networking opportunities for a vendor's greater community and ecosystem
  • Educating members on new capabilities
  • Creating a forum for the vendor and other providers to discuss new initiatives.
...yet market needs creates demand for stronger leadership on key issues Comparisons of the November 2008 survey with the latest July 2009 update show that user group members seek greater assistance (see Figure 1).  In fact, rapid vendor consolidation, continual economic pressures, and high pressure sales tactics increase membership demands that user groups increasingly serve as client advocates in working with the vendors.  Key trends from the 2009 H2 191 respondent survey show sharp shifts such as:
  • ~52% increase to negotiate license discounts
  • ~50% decrease to communicate vendor news and updates
  • ~30% increase to address product issues, bugs, enhancement requests
  • ~24% increase to fight for maintenance fee reductions
  • ~22% increase to influence product road maps
Other interesting trends include:
  • ~10% decrease to liaise with software vendor executives
  • ~7% increase to deliver training and educational sessions
  • ~5% increase to benchmark performance
  • ~4% increase to share product and technical knowledge
  • ~3% decrease to provide recruiting opportunities
  • No change to facilitate peer networking opportunities
    Figure 1. Users Now Expect More Advocacy From Their User Groups [caption id="attachment_2827" align="aligncenter" width="850" caption="Source: Software Insider's Point of View User Group Survey - Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved."]Users demand more action from user groups[/caption]
The bottom line - users need to play a more active role in both good and bad times Beyond paying the membership dues, user groups are only as successful as their active membership.   The challenge - strike a good balance in meeting membership needs and involving the membership in participating in key initiatives.  As users, now's the time to play a key role in transforming the user groups to meet key requirements and putting one of the best checks and balances in play.   Get active, get engaged and ask key questions to find out how effective your user group is? Some key questions user group members should ask:
  • How well does the user group align with my organization's key initiatives?
  • Is the user group business model aligned with the ability to advocate for the membership?
  • Does the user group have the leadership to publicly and privately raise issues with the vendor?
  • Do officers in the user group receive special privileges for their companies that members may not be privy to and how does that influence their ability to advocate on behalf of the membership?
  • How much say does the vendor have in the user group's decision making?
  • How independent is the user group?  How much money is received from the vendor versus outside sponsorships?  How does that money impact decision making?
The bottom line - vendors can proactively add value by addressing shifting requirements Strong user group leadership teams quickly respond to changing membership needs and leverage the power of the users and clients to publicly and privately create checks in the balance of power.  The goal - improve the vendor-client relationship via the influence of the membership.   Savvy vendors can address the enhancement request issue, product road maps, and performance benchmarks by:
  • Dedicating executive resources to user group initiatives
  • Increasing transparency in the requirements prioritization process
  • Creating resources to share benchmarking information
  • Reporting more frequently on progress.
Your POV. Do you feel your user group has given you value?  What are you looking from your user group? As a user what would you like to see from your user group?  Are you a software vendor trying to design better user group programs?  Would you like advice on how your program compares?  Feel free to share your experiences here or send me a private email to rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org. Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday’s Tip: 3 Approaches To Return Shelfware

Published on July 21, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang
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 customers to buy more than they need at a "good" discount.  Yet, the end result is the payment of maintenance on non deployed apps (a.k.a. shelfware").
  • Repricing clauses. Many contracts contain language that impose list price recalculations when users choose to return their licenses to the vendor.
  • Bundled contracts. Contractual language often prevents clients from unbundling their software as needed.  In addition, vendors have initiated focused programs to bundle licenses.
The bottom line - apply three shelfware maintenance fee reduction techniques Craft a win-win strategy based on your product adoption requirements and overall contract negotiations strategy.  Three proven techniques in order of improving win-win  shelfware reduction scenarios:
  • Return unused licenses. Vendors agree to take back licenses and proportionately reduce maintenance costs.  Customers lose future rights to those licenses.
  • Park unused licenses. Vendors agree to hold unsued licenses and not charge maintenance.  Customers still have rights to the licenses and will pay for maintenance when licenses are deployed
  • Apply credit to purchase of new licenses. Vendors agree to assign a value to shelfware.  Credit on used licenses will be applied to future purchses.  Customers lose rights to the original software but gain rights to new software and functionality.
Your POV. Having issues with returning shelf ware?  Which approach have you tried?  Ready to share with us your experiences to date?  If you need help with your SAP, Oracle, Infor, Lawson, Microsoft Dynamics, or other enterprise software contract, send me a private mail and we can assist with a contract negotiations strategy that aligns with your apps adoption strategy.   You can post here or send me a private email to rwang0 at gmail dot com. Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday’s Tip: Do Not Bundle Your Support and Maintenance Contracts!

Published on July 7, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang
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 provided by the vendor sales reps seem benevolent:
  • Reduce the time and headaches of managing multiple contracts
  • Update existing contract provisions
  • Identify areas of non-compliance.
Keep in mind sales reps have been trained to push these new programs. The bottom line - users should keep their guards up when vendor sales reps suggest bundling While the above rationale make sense, bundling often create an all or nothing situation.  Basically, it eliminates your options to go with another vendor throughout the 5 phases of the software ownership life cycle (i.e. selection, implementation, utilization, maintenance, and retirement).  Convenience of one contract will be offset by 3 scenarios why you should never bundle your support and maintenance contracts:
  • Lump sum payment. Moving to one support and maintenance contract often means that the annual fees will be paid all at once.  If push comes to shove, customers can mitigate this by asking for partial payments or more regular payment plans.
  • Third party maintenance. Customers seeking to move off of their vendor delivered support and maintenance will find themselves unable to segment out specific products and solutions.  Individual contracts by products preserve the option to cancel as needed.  In very rare cases, customers have carved out the maintenance for significantly older releases
  • Replacement strategies. Leaving contracts separate allows for easy replacement of applications.  This strategy makes most sense when customers have become a vendor's customers by acquisition.  Leaving contracts separate enables the option to switch solutions, move to a SaaS option, or create more leverage in deals with the vendor.
Be aware of these new efforts to suggest consolidation of contracts.  There are very few benefits.  Should this be suggested to you, do not hesitate to reach out for advice on strategies to mitigate risk! Your POV. In the Enterprise Software Licensee Bill of Rights V2, new rights address this issue.   But for now, have you experienced such vendor tactics?  Did you manage to segment out your contracts?  Do you need assistance with your apps strategy and contract negotiations strategy?  Please post here or send me a private email to rwang0 at gmail dot com. Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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