Steven Zolman

Oct. 15,2011

Having a methodical and deliberate understanding of data will determine how it should be stored and protected, which translates into strategies for tiered storage, backup and recovery, archiving and recovery point (and time) objectives for disaster recovery. Should we be surprised we’ve reached this point? After all, data processing has been around at least since the advent of removable type and we’ve been challenged with the proper and cost effective storage of data ever since. With most IT organizations facing unprecedented pressure to serve up rapidly and continuously growing information sets of logically collected data faster and more ...

Steven Zolman

Sep. 23,2011

Yep. Meg Whitman in as CEO for HP, and Leo Apotheker is out – after only 11 months. It’s the SEVENTH CEO at HP since 1999. Don’t worry, she likely won’t be there long, as this is only the latest completely inexplicable move by the HP board; a board most famous for the uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at nearly every occasion. Here are five reasons Whitman won’t be able to fix HP: 1. Leo Near Killed HP: Since Leo took over as CEO, the value of HP is down around 50%, and is currently valued as it was in mid-2005. HP has spent $10s of billions on failed acquisitions, including the most recent example of HP missing the ...

Steven Zolman

Sep. 23,2011

Name an IT expenditure that businesses loath paying but can’t seem to live without. Actually, that probably opens up a lot of IT products and services to criticize, but let’s start with hardware maintenance agreements. To believe your hardware supplier, it is an absolute necessity to protect yourself in the event of hardware failures and, like software support agreements, your access to all the neat software updates that enhance their product. Of course most enterprises want to have protection in the event of failure and keep on top of critical software updates, but most basic hardware warranties are by design a shell of what the enterprise ...

Steven Zolman

Aug. 23,2011

It’s a truism in software and services negotiation: suppliers are more willing to make special deals and terms concessions as their financial years and quarters end. But clients all too frequently fail to make use of this information – to start your preparations with enough lead time, to use the very real supplier deadline in your favor. To help you organize your plans, we’ve listed the Fiscal Year end dates for a number of major suppliers in this table. Take a few moments to mark your calendars with at least three months’ lead time to get in touch with NET(net) to maximize your value from the supplier Fiscal Year ends. Accenture 31-Aug CGI ...

Steven Zolman

Aug. 23,2011

NET(net) posed the question on Twitter one day: “How does the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) have the authority to audit software license use?” In thousands of license transactions, we’ve never given them that right. Learn your software audit rights in this blog. We were looking for some insight that we might have missed. In the world of contracts, your license grant will actually call out specific provisions regarding who has the ability to audit your license usage (if any ability is so granted). In the world of contract law, the term “standing” is used to show who actually is allowed to raise a particular issue (via ...

Steven Zolman

Aug. 23,2011

Let’s face it, outsourcing is a way of life these days, but it is flawed especially in the area of contractual agreements. No matter when you did your agreement, it’s time to check for and mitigate the Five Fatal Flaws. I’ve seen a lot of outsourcing agreements, and most of them are simply not sustainable. They suffer from one or more of these fatal flaws:[spacer height="20px"] 1. Communication For one reason or another, most organizations don’t communicate well. The world changes and those changes usually mean alterations in the goals of an outsourcing agreement. Effective and regular communication is essential to make sure the changing ...

Steven Zolman

Jul. 28,2011

Many of NET(net)’s clients are finding that the deals they once negotiated are no longer sustainable and, as a result, they are spending more time renegotiating legacy deals than they are negotiating new deals. There are many perils of trying to renegotiate a deal. If there are disproportionate benefits to the supplier, their general view is to try to hold on to those benefits. Any attempts to try to remedy these inequities usually result in bitter disputes. Even though most agreements contain language governing disputes, including facilitative mediation, arbitration, and litigation, most disputes are settled with informal escalation that ...

Steven Zolman

Jul. 19,2011

Think about the last large thing you purchased. A house, a car, a boat, or, sure, even software. Do you remember the price? Do you remember the number YOU last offered? Would it surprise you to know that more than 70% of the time, it's a round number? And of those round number times, more than 80% of the time, the last several digits (depending on the size of the number) are zeros? This is because, generally speaking, humans love orderly things, including numbers. Round, whole numbers are easy to deal with in your head. They also don't mask change as well. For example, most people would rather say "$2,500,000" than "$2,494,293". In fact, we ...

Steven Zolman

Jul. 19,2011

Governance of outsourcing agreements can be complex and challenging. There are ways to simplify the governance process, however, by crafting agreements which take into account the business drivers, tolerances and environments of both the client and the supplier. It is interesting to note that many (if not most) organizations seeking to (re)negotiate their outsourcing (and other IT-related) agreements typically only do so every few years. Changes in the marketplace from supplier tolerances and market value perspectives are fast and furious. That said, doesn’t it make sense to level the playing field? Bringing in an agnostic outsourcing ...

Steven Zolman

Jul. 19,2011

Clients dealing with complex issues generally understand there is no such thing as “Too Much Information”. Our world’s information is currently doubling every two years, and in 2010 alone, we created more information than in all of recorded history. This ongoing data explosion inundates all our clients, but can also be an enormous opportunity. NET(net) specializes in IT Investment Optimization, an area where the information is convoluted, the answers are obfuscated, and the rules are unintelligible. In our world of supplier marketing presentations, supplier pricing models, supplier support policies, and supplier contract provisions and ...