In the ever-shifting landscape of 2025, enterprise IT leaders and CFOs find themselves at a critical juncture. Market uncertainties are swirling like a storm on the horizon—think tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and economic forecasts that sound more like a Magic 8-Ball prediction than a solid plan. A recent CNBC survey from March 25, 2025, revealed that a whopping 95% of CFOs are feeling the heat of policy uncertainty, with many predicting a recession before the year’s end. Meanwhile, the U.S. stock market is teetering on the edge, as Forbes warned on March 1, 2025, citing multiple risk factors that could send investors running for cover. ...
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Good news! As expected, SAP has extended its support for ECC for at least another 6 years. As with all things SAP - buyers are well advised to beware. SAP plans to offer... SAP ERP - Private Edition - Transition Option The new offering, which won’t be available for purchase until 2028, entails moving the hosting of legacy ECC deployments to SAP hosting. Setting aside the complexities associated with changing hosting providers and SAP’s prior failures as a hosting provider for its software for customers, SAP’s option will undoubtedly be a premium cost for an inferior product based upon its customers’ prior experience. What the above ...
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Feeling locked in with IBM? Has their latest renewal left you sour and searching for alternatives? You're not alone. Many large enterprises face similar frustrations – hefty price tags, rigid contracts, and a lack of transparency can leave you feeling powerless and overpaying. At NET(net), we specialize in technology cost and value optimization, and we understand the complexities of navigating the ever-evolving technology landscape. We've seen firsthand the challenges client organizations face when heavily reliant on one supplier, particularly IBM. But rest assured, there's light at the end of the tunnel – and it doesn't involve burning ...
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Preface Broadcom's recent acquisition of VMware has raised concerns among client organizations. In this blog, we will review what has happened and discuss the top five concerns that enterprises should have about this mega-acquisition along with five effective countermeasures that client organizations can take to protect themselves. Immediately after Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware was announced, VMWare customers had five top concerns, specifically: Top 5 Concerns: Price Increases - Broadcom has a history of raising prices after acquiring companies, and there is concern that it will do the same with VMware. This could make it more expensive ...
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In a monumental move, Cisco Systems, known for its networking equipment, has announced its intent to acquire Splunk for $28B USD ($157/share), the San Francisco-based company renowned for its software platform that monitors, searches, and analyzes big data along with a full suite of cyber security offerings. Both companies have significant histories in the tech industry, with Cisco having a footprint in network management and cybersecurity, while Splunk focuses on real-time data processing and analytics. The acquisition makes sense for Cisco as they have been reshaping their business from hardware-centric to higher margin software-centric. ...
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Introduction: Doing the same things and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity, at least according to Albert Einstein. Engaging with suppliers in 2023 requires a different approach otherwise, you can expect price increases by 20% or more on your annual renewals. The Rise of an Anti-Customer Profiteering: Historically, technology suppliers would at least try to align with their customers for mutual long-term benefit. In 2023, at the very time that their customers are in desperate need of relief on costs, technology suppliers have departed from their long term aligned stance. Instead, suppliers are forcing substantial ...
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Oracle's financials have generally been strong in recent years with their aggressive cloud push, reporting steady growth in revenues and earnings. However, Oracle faces increasing competition from other cloud providers, particularly in the areas of IaaS and PaaS. Additionally, Oracle has been shifting its focus towards cloud-based services and away from its traditional software licensing business, which could impact its financial performance in the long-term. Read our series related to this starting with The Top 5 Price Shock Phenomena of Cloud Costs. In the very short term however, they have missed earnings targets and indicated on their ...
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Salesforce has led the market for years. We have pointed to Salesforce as the culprit who broke the early promise of software as a service as (SaaS). SaaS was supposed to be elastic with demand allowing costs to go both up and down. Historically, we know that Salesforce is supportive of increases in their customers' cost but it has been punitive to reductions. With Salesforce’s fiscal year-end coming at the end of January 2023, now is a great time to re-evaluate your deployment and at the very least benchmark to see how your spend compares to the market. But first, more on Salesforce themselves…. Things 'they are a changin' in ...
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These days the whole world sometimes feels like a Snowflake… and by that we mean that growth is slowing, and stocks are generally down as reality sets in. Snowflake, the company, is still growing but nowhere near the breakneck speed of the good (?) old days. Macroeconomic factors may be contributing to that, but we believe that, like our clients, the market for Snowflake has figured out that deployments need to be actively managed so that the negotiated costs are not exceeded. Early Snowflake customers learned the hard way that their first agreement would ultimately set the floor for what they would spend, eventually understanding that their ...
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As we are well into calendar Q4, several tech companies have announced layoffs and cutbacks as they prepare to weather inflation and the impending recession storm. Despite all the great news coming out of Oracle from their Q1 2023 report (announced September 12, 2022), they have been laying off employees throughout the course of 2022 on the heels of their Cerner acquisition in their quest to cut $1B in cost in the name of synergy. Somewhat surprising to us; however, is that they are also laying off from their OCI group (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure). Given their claims of robust cloud growth that they talk about to Wall Street in their Q1 ...
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