With the advent of cloud computing, customers were expecting that new competition will change the attitude of vendors. This is largely not the case. Even the recent announcement of SAP to allow customers exchange shelfware against something more useful, shows not much change of attitude:
- Allowances are treated like mercy by the vendor
- Top discounts are taken away if customers try to execute on vendor promises
- The lock-in dilemma is now spreading to cloud solutions as well
- More cases of dispute are taken to court or threatened to do so
Therefore, the principle judgement of Peter Wesche during the 2009 German user group meeting remains unchanged and still represents an excellent summary of how you can prepare for better software investment management. See three parts of that speech: Guidance