I love it when a CPA comes out batting for the buy side. In Business Week, Gene Marks CPA points the finger of blame for software maintenance firmly in the direction of Meir M. “Manny” Lehman:
It all began in the 1960s, when Lehman predicted that changes in software were inevitable, and that they’d be brought on not by bugs or poor programming, but because of user requests for more features and functionality.
It’s a good theory, but oh, the injustices it spawned! If only software users could count on regular updates that make the product more useful. Instead, Lehman’s research has been used by software vendors to justify annual maintenance fees that do more to boost vendors’ bottom lines than they do to improve products.
Curse you, Manny Lehman! May your children and grandchildren be stuck using Microsoft’s Windows Vista for their lifetimes!
Mr Marks then goes on to detail some of the ingenious strategies that SME buyers are employing to force the issue such as:
- Letting maintenance lapse so the supplier crawls back pleading
- Picking up black market licenses (very naughty)
- Buying in other names and then tacking onto existing (also naughty)
- Negotiating multi-year license/maintenance deals with upfront payment
What he didn’t suggest but is one of Vinnie Mirchandani’s favorites is the idea that maintenance/support is relatively high in early years and trends down as the product matures and as the client gains confidence in what they’re doing.
I’d recommend: establish centers of excellence so that you can become independent of your supplier. This only works if you have a solid IT presence.
And of course there is always the third party maintenance option that both Vinnie and Ray Wang like.
But in the meantime, to repeat Mr Marks:
Curse you, Manny Lehman! May your children and grandchildren be stuck using Microsoft’s Windows Vista for their lifetimes!
