I was on a call with a client today who is renegotiating a contract with a vendor. I am not going to name names because it does not make any difference. It made me angry because the client was acting like a victim. "What if the vendor comes to audit our software usage and finds we are out compliance. It might cost us a lot of money". The client was bending over backwards to try to make sure that they were in compliance. There is nothing wrong with that. Most customers do make their best effort to be compliant. The challenge is that this particular vendor has so much ambiguity in the language of their contracts and policies that the client cannot really tell if they are in compliance.
Here are two examples of ambiguity:
- The vendor offers a limited use and a full use version of a product. There is no clear criteria about the limits of use for the limited use version. Complicating matters, the customer purchased the product before the vendor started to delineate between a limited use and full use version. So, they also might have used it in ways that go beyond the limited use prior to their being a full use solution. They are not sure. I was not sure in some cases.
At a minimum, when vendors introduce these distinctions, anyone who had bought the product prior to the policy or offering change should be grandfathered. Period. Trying to convince the customer that they should pay additionally to get the full use version is just plain wrong (unless they intend to use it going forward in ways that would require the full use version).
- The vendor changed the packaging/bundling of a solution and over time has introduced new functionality. So, the product the customer licensed many years ago is not offered any more and what is offered in its place now has additional functionality. The vendor was trying to get the client to pay more for that additional functionality. My initial read, based on what the client told me that the vendor indicated were the differences between what they had licensed and what was now available, was there was no new, next generation solution that would potentially constitute a licensing event. Rather, it was incremental functional improvements. In fact, if the customer wanted to stay current on releases, there was no choice but for them to adopt the solution that includes the new functionality. The vendor felt that only X% of the functionality was new so the customer would only need to pay X% of the cost of the new modules to get back into "compliance". This is patently ridiculous. This is one of the things the client's maintenance dollars have been paying for all of these many years: incremental enhancements.
Yet, the client was more concerned about whether or not they were in compliance and if the vendor did an audit that they would find more things to charge them for. As I thought about it afterwards, it reminded me of battered wife's syndrome (and yes, you can save the e-mails -- this in no way compares).
Customers take this abuse because they let the vendors get away with it. They could walk away, but they can think of so many reasons why they cannot. For example, they have spent so much money with a particular vendor that it would be much too costly to change. What is worse? Getting "nickel and dimed" like this at any opportunity or moving on and forming a healthy relationship with other vendors that truly understand the meaning of service and partnership. It may cost more in the short-term (and I recognize now the short-term is important right now), but you are likely better off in the long-term.
You do not have to be a victim. There are choices. There are other vendors in every market. There are alternative delivery models like SaaS and Open Source. Depending on the vendor, there may be third-party maintenance options available. The main point of this post is that you do not have to take what the vendor says as gospel. They are not the final arbiter if you are in compliance. Their interpretation of the contract or policy, especially if the language is ambiguous, may or may not be correct. If the vendor changes the rules or has ambiguous policies that they interpret to their maximum advantage (and your disadvantage). You do not have to take it. You can challenge the vendor's interpretation. You can also change to a different solution. You have choices. Take back control.
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