Scott Braden

May. 5,2015

NET(net) completed a successful engagement for a global client that has over 70,000 employees and operations in 17 countries. With NET(net)'s guidance and expertise, the client was able to save $18M+ over 3 years on a global subscription EA renewal. This client engagement combined several factors which are increasingly common in today's Microsoft licensing deals and can provide valuable lessons for other Microsoft customers: A global footprint including diverse and, in some cases, quasi-independent local IT decision making This leads to numerous challenges including communication, coordination of plans, information sharing, contract and ...

Steven Zolman

Apr. 30,2015

In our history of Client advocacy in thousands of professionally managed supplier engagements globally, we have seen virtually every Service Level Agreement (SLA) ever developed, constructed, negotiated, implemented, monitored, measured, reported on, or renegotiated. In that history, we can recall some that stood up well to the situations they were designed to protect. However, most SLAs don’t have the ability to change over time and almost none evolve to keep pace with the changing nature of the relationship between the Client and the supplier, or the changing environment. This is the fundamental premise on which we base most of our ...

Dave Young

Apr. 29,2015

Not surprisingly, investments in Cybersecurity are on a significant upward trend in all categories. This past summer 2014, Gartner reported global numbers from businesses and governments that indicate they will have spent an estimated $71.1B protecting their information assets in 2014, up 7.9% from the previous year. The research firm also predicts the growth rate will increase to 8.1% this year, for an estimated total of $76.9 billion of spend in this area in 2015. This growth is expected to accelerate significantly from there, reaching an estimated $155.74 billion in spend by 2019. As NET(net) reviews the IT spend of our clients, seeking ...

Scott Braden

Apr. 1,2015

How do you ensure your Microsoft deal doesn't end up costing way more than anticipated? After doing thousands of Microsoft deals over the last dozen or so years, we know all too well that the hard work starts after the deal is signed. In many people's minds, "the deal" is complete when negotiations are done, deal terms and pricing agreed and contracts and PO's executed. But in fact, "the deal" can't be complete until all promised goods and services are delivered, on time, at or below estimated cost, and with suitable quality and acceptance by the client. Unfortunately, in many cases, the supplier's view of the deal is conversely focused on ...

Steven Zolman

Mar. 19,2015

Oracle have you seeing RED, and concerned about spending too much GREEN? When it comes to draconian supplier policies, perhaps no one makes their customers see more RED than Oracle. Many times, seeing Oracle RED also costs you too much of your hard earned GREEN. We have documented over 40 major issues that routinely cost our clients too much GREEN when it comes to dealing with Oracle. Below, we discuss the Top 5 Ways Oracle Makes You See RED. The Top 5 Ways Oracle Makes You See RED and Costs You Too Much GREEN: 5. Bundling of Support 4. Re-Pricing Provision 3. Matching Support Policy 2. Binding of Legacy Maintenance 1. Oracle Audits 5: ...

Scott Braden

Feb. 19,2014

Satya Nadella is Microsoft’s next CEO confirming, again, that Microsoft views “the cloud” as the company’s strongest bet for future growth and continued dominance of the enterprise software world. Previously, he was executive vice-president of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group – and that should be all the information that enterprise IT managers need to know about where Microsoft wants to go in the future (taking enterprise customers along for the ride of course). I think this truly is a key inflection point in Microsoft’s history, even beyond the obvious changing of the guard from the old Gates / Ballmer duo, and the rather distinct ...

Scott Braden

Feb. 11,2014

Microsoft is gradually rolling out an entirely new volume licensing agreement structure for enterprise customers, previewed in blog posts here: Transformation on the Horizon for Microsoft Volume Licensing and Microsoft Makes Sweeping Changes to its Volume-Licensing Plans Reading between the lines: the key concept is "committed" - like they've been doing with EAP / ECI agreements, you only get the great volume pricing when / if you include Software Assurance for every device / installation in the enterprise. For many enterprises that's a deal-killer. Example: SQL Server. The current EAP agreement requires all SQL instances to be "included" - ...

Scott Braden

Oct. 15,2013

Microsoft has announced price increases effective November 1, 2013, for products including Windows Server Datacenter, RDS CALs and a new contract format, the "Server & Cloud Enrollment” (SCE). Click HERE to read the announcement. And so continues Microsoft’s historic pattern of increasing prices ahead of new version releases, and the usual autumn price bumps they post. This year it’s mostly about Windows Server and “RDS” which is the Citrix/Terminal Server/virtual desktop piece, along with related products. Also, on the cloud front, new Azure capabilities (maturity) with bundling/pricing tie-ins to EA’s, via this new SCE agreement ...

Eric Guyer

Sep. 18,2013

The old adage that the customer is always right is no longer passé as the IT market shifts from traditional, perpetual license agreements to cloud subscriptions. Old habits die hard, however, and most customers need to be shaken from the Stockholm syndrome that decades of painful negotiations and paying exorbitant maintenance fees have left them with. The most symptomatic effects are far more subtle than positive feelings toward their supplier-captors; rather, it’s the belief that suppliers’ values reign supreme. Consider, for example, how Oracle treats its customers within a negotiation for incremental licensing. To summarize, contract ...

Scott Braden

Sep. 18,2013

As perhaps the most famous and successful pair of tag-team tech executives in history, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer built the Microsoft empire by first co-opting the operating system of the new PC devices, then learning from the lessons of their new business partner IBM about how to build and enforce monopolistic "lock-in" over their customers and partners. As their market position and strength increased, they engineered long term growth and dominance by using aggressive pricing and licensing tactics, combined with a constant churning of the core product bundles (but always relying on Windows first, then Office, then servers). Microsoft's ...