Executive Summary: Microsoft's upcoming elimination of volume discounts on subscription agreements, effective November 1, 2025, is masquerading as a push for pricing consistency but is fundamentally a cynical ploy to inflate revenues by eroding enterprise bargaining power and locking in higher margins. Historical precedents, including the 2022 Microsoft 365 hikes of 8.6-25% and 2023's 9-15% cloud surges, demonstrate a consistent pattern where such "updates" drive up customer costs without delivering proportional value, as evidenced by previous subscription model shifts boosting Microsoft's commercial revenue by 31%. Enterprises face ...
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At NET(net), we’ve spent decades exposing technology suppliers’ tactics—from over-selling to blatant coercion. But Tableau’s latest move under Salesforce is a new low: forcing customers to abandon millions worth of perpetual licenses for a costly SaaS trap. This isn’t business, it’s betrayal. Unfortunately, it echoes our earlier warnings as we revealed how suppliers devalue past investments and create artificial urgency to trap customers. The recent moves by Tableau, now under Salesforce’s umbrella, are a strong reminder of what’s at stake. Their aggressive push to force customers to abandon their perpetual license rights in favor of a ...
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Preface Nearly all clients are seeking greater prosperity in 2024. While client organizations are still focused on cost reductions to meet the challenges of their new economic and market realities, the pent-up demands of the business are increasingly calling for innovation, automation, and organizational performance improvement. Digital Transformation has emerged as the #1 Way to Boost Performance and Savings concurrently. Client organizations that are digitally transforming are harvesting greater value by: Automating tasks (RPA) to streamline efficiencies Unlocking data insights (ML) for better organizational (AI) decision-making Empowering ...
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Preface Nearly all clients are seeking greater prosperity in 2024. While client organizations are still focused on cost reductions to meet the challenges of their new economic and market realities, the pent-up demands of the business are increasingly calling for innovation, automation, and organizational performance improvement. Digital Transformation has emerged as the #1 Way to Boost Performance and Savings concurrently. Client organizations that are digitally transforming are harvesting greater value by: Automating tasks (RPA) to streamline efficiencies Unlocking data insights (ML) for better organizational (AI) decision-making Empowering ...
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Preface Nearly all clients are seeking greater prosperity in 2024. While client organizations are still focused on cost reductions to meet the challenges of their new economic and market realities, the pent-up demands of the business are increasingly calling for innovation, automation, and organizational performance improvement. Digital Transformation has emerged as the #1 Way to Boost Performance and Savings concurrently. Client organizations that are digitally transforming are harvesting greater value by: Automating tasks (RPA) to streamline efficiencies Unlocking data insights (ML) for better organizational (AI) decision-making Empowering ...
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Steven C Zolman, NET(net) Founder, Owner, and Executive Chairman Preface Nearly all clients are seeking greater prosperity in 2024. While client organizations are still focused on cost reductions to meet the challenges of their new economic and market realities, the pent-up demands of the business are increasingly calling for innovation, automation, and organizational performance improvement. Digital Transformation has emerged as the #1 Way to Boost Performance and Savings concurrently. Client organizations that are digitally transforming are harvesting greater value by: Automating tasks (RPA) to streamline efficiencies Unlocking data ...
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Preface Nearly all clients are seeking greater prosperity in 2024. While client organizations are still focused on cost reductions to meet the challenges of their new economic and market realities, the pent-up demands of the business are increasingly calling for innovation, automation, and organizational performance improvement. Digital Transformation has emerged as the #1 Way to Boost Performance and Savings concurrently. Client organizations that are digitally transforming are harvesting greater value by: Automating tasks (RPA) to streamline efficiencies Unlocking data insights (ML) for better organizational (AI) decision-making Empowering ...
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Where we were: Enter the Disruptor Workday's journey to becoming the market leader in the human capital management (HCM) space is a story of innovation, strategic partnerships, and capitalizing on market shifts. Founded in 2005 by former PeopleSoft executives, Workday entered a market dominated by the old guard, established players like SAP and Oracle. However, Workday differentiated itself by offering a cloud-based solution, a modern user interface, and a focus on user experience, which really resonated with both HR professionals and executives. Workday's growth was further fueled by its strategic partnerships. In 2010, it formed a key ...
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Salesforce.com has long been a leader in customer relationship management (CRM) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), but whispers of discontent have been growing amongst its large enterprise customers in recent years. Concerns center around a perceived slowdown in innovation, hefty and seemingly ever-increasing price tags, and a recent wave of key executive departures. This raises a crucial question: is Salesforce still a worthwhile investment for large enterprises in 2024? The Challenges: Certainly, Salesforce offers a comprehensive feature set, strong ecosystem, and enterprise scalability. However, they have a number of challenges, and these are ...
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Preface Many client organizations buy a Datadog subscription (at least initially) to monitor cloud application performance to identify and reduce cloud costs (generally as a result of inefficient processing). As time goes on, and the client organization expands its use of monitoring, these costs start to stack up. At some point, clients start wondering, ‘who is the Datadog for my Datadog’!? If you’re getting rolled by your Datadog subscription, you just may need to get that dawg in you. For real! Introduction Datadog is a monitoring and analytics platform for cloud-scale applications, providing monitoring of servers, databases, tools, and ...
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