Undoing the dupe: A way out of your Big Software contracts

By Roger Burkhardt, CEO, Ingres

(Last month Burkhardt wrote about how Big Software companies lock customers into restrictive software licensing agreements and continue to raise prices, even during tough economic times. Here Burkhardt offers some tips for effectively renegotiating contracts with your current Big Software suppliers.)

Burkhardt tells how to untangle your company from Big Software. Photo: Ingres

For decades now many of us in corporations have been paying loads of money to work with Big Software companies like Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM) and SAP (SAP). Our information technology employees are familiar with these software vendors and their technologies (and their proprietary licensing models) and may even identify their careers with them. So, while we may suspect we are being overcharged, and could spend millions less running our IT departments, we have remained comfortably, and expensively, locked-in.

But we want to be back in charge. And we deserve to be; we’re the customers that line the pockets of all Big Software companies. Without us, who would buy all that software?

But we question whether it is even possible to break away from this perverse reality where software leviathans dictate both economic terms and the technology road maps that are critical to our business. More

Can an online connection replace the personal touch?

By Zvi Guterman, CEO, IT Structures

The economy may be improving, but corporations are still acting like we’re in the midst of a downturn, especially when it comes to their information technology decisions. Companies are slashing IT budgets, delaying purchasing decisions, and executives are taking a more hands-on approach to evaluating new software offerings.

Technology vendors have reacted to this new world by doing some cost-cutting of their own. Ironically, at a time when buyers are making it harder for tech suppliers to close deals, vendors are making the situation worse by eliminating marketing budgets, reducing sales staff and restricting travel.

In short, sales organizations are expected to not only sell to a tougher audience, but to do it with fewer resources.

Some leading technology vendors are re-examining the way they sell in order to emerge from the recession as not only survivors, but as agile, dominant players. But with everyone focusing on making cuts and putting out fires, it is easy to overlook the larger strategic shift in how enterprise technology is used, sold and paid for.

The mammoth enterprise software deals that required millions of dollars upfront in licensing fees are being replaced by more agile business models, such as software as a service (SaaS), on-demand availability and pay-as-you-go purchasing. These dynamic purchasing trends have not stopped or slowed down because of the weak economy. On the contrary, they’ve accelerated. More

How enterprise software giants separate you from more of your company’s money

By Roger Burkhardt, CEO, Ingres

Burkhardt reveals Big Software's secrets. Photo: Ingres

Here’s how the software business really works: A software company charges your firm an enormous upfront licensing fee and locks you into escalating costs for decades to come, often using a set of hardball tactics.

But with the growing popularity of pay-as-you-go and subscription-based software and services, the old way is being exposed for the unfair financial model that it actually is. And the new open, more flexible models are starting to make the old ones look downright deceitful, especially when you show them against the backdrop of a deep recession.

Many companies have been forced to downsize to make it through these tough economic times. And as information technology and C-level executives examine the financial books together, many are discovering the unfortunate news that their Big Software contracts are harming their business’ bottom line and cannot be downsized – at least now without a fundamental change of approach.

Perhaps it’s not always intentional, but if you’re an IT decision maker with several of these licensed-based software contracts on the books, it’s very likely you’re getting duped. More

Bad times can't last forever. Start acting like a winner.

Lochhead: Eight rules for thriving post-recession. Photo: Christopher Lochhead

By Christopher Lochhead, strategy advisor and former chief marketing officer, Mercury Interactive

A lot of CEOs got caught flat-footed by the recession: they just didn't see the global downturn coming. They didn't act quickly enough, and as a result, their companies' revenues and earnings suffered more than they needed to. So did their people, customers, and shareholders.

It goes without saying that a lot of executives likewise will misjudge the upturn. Don’t be one of them.

Opportunity may be knocking. As a few rays of light cut through the economic storm clouds, it’s time for action. It is time to start planning, and taking selective thoughtful actions. Here are eight ideas for leading the upturn: More

How technology is aiding – and shaping – the growing mobile workforce

By Greg Harper, president of Runzheimer International

Harper likes GPS and web-based services. Photo: Runzheimer Int'l.

A couple of decades ago few CEOs would advocate for empty parking lots and vacant office cubicles. Today, that has changed. Currently, more than 50% of the workforce is mobile on any given day, and IDC predicts that number to reach 73% by 2011.

While employee mobility offers tremendous potential for cost savings, improved organizational agility and better customer relationships, organizations must rely on technology to strategically enable an anytime, anywhere workforce–or risk throwing the cost savings and improved efficiency benefits out the window.

Our company specializes in helping corporations manage their mobile workforces, and we’ve found there are countless technologies that promise to make life easier for road warriors, telecommuters and relocating workers. Here are the tested technologies that really matter:

GPS devices
GPS technology can be a great way for employees to plan their routes and get familiar with new geographic areas more quickly. It can also help companies locate where their mobile employees are at any given time, which can add a level of safety. For companies with service employees in the field, a GPS program helps provide better customer service, as employees can adapt to appointment time changes quickly and give customers a more accurate idea of when their technician will arrive. Finally, GPS systems are important for a mobile workforce because they make a tedious task –- reporting on expense submissions – easier, and provide more accurate data for business reimbursements. More

As cloud computing spreads, so does your company’s data.

Tobolski: The cloud also has a dark side. Photo: Accenture

By Joseph F. Tobolski, director of development, Accenture Technology Labs

It often starts off innocently, say with a twentysomething employee seeking additional servers to do a data analysis project.  Studies show, after all, that it’s these “millennials” who expect to use their own preferred technologies for work rather than those supplied by their employer.

Anyway, he can’t get this from IT, so he goes and loads data on a server he rents from a "cloud" service provider.  He later completes the project, but neglects to delete the data.  When he leaves the company the following year, the corporate data he has in the cloud has been long forgotten and it’s now impossible for his employer to corral.

Meanwhile he tells his colleagues how easy it was to procure servers and storage from the cloud.  Pretty soon, his associates follow suit and build applications in the cloud, several of which go viral within the company. More

Outage raises questions about Google's enterprise aspirations.

Google's Gmail has to outperform its competitors. Image: Google

Gmail's patrons are still cranky after the Sept. 1 outage that left them without Gmail for nearly two hours. For most users who rely on the free e-mail service, its absence — during prime web-surfing hours no less — was a nuisance.

But for Google’s (GOOG) enterprise business, the stakes are higher. More than 1.75 million companies pay the annual $50-per-user subscription fee for their employees to use Google Apps, the web-based application suite that includes Gmail for business and other functions.

It’s been two years since Google launched the product, and just this past summer it removed the term “beta,” explaining Google Apps has “met or exceeded” the standards of non-beta software. More

Roundtable brings together top tech executives

Before there is Brainstorm Tech (the conference) there is Infotech Forty (the forum).

Fortune senior writer Jon Fortt and I are co-chairing an intimate event for a group of high-ranking technology executives whose jobs are becoming increasingly strategic in their corporations. No longer are these chief information officers and chief technology officers the folks who make company computers and software run; they play key roles in making sure their enterprises meet financial and other goals.

Attendees include Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior, SAP tech chief Vishal Sikka, and Albert Cheng, executive vice president, digital media for Disney's ABC group. More