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Does Your Vendor Issue Gag Orders?
Presto Vivace writes to tell us that CIO has an interesting article about customer "gag orders" that some ERP vendors are trying to impose contractually. "The effect: customers will be prevented from working with peers and others in the software company's "ecosystem" to help with technical issues or compare pricing options. 'In addition,' Wang adds, 'the customer now lacks the proper checks and balances in pressuring a vendor to deliver on promised capabilities or address severe security issues, and cannot go to the media as a last resort, if needed.'" What other questionable practices (and potential solutions) have others had to work with?
Why would any major company agree to such arrangements?
Of course such insane arrangements with respect to investments lead to a portion of the financial meltdown.
Think Deeply.
I just got an email from my boss that our proposal to switch to a new reporting tool, mostly due to the licensing BS the old company tried to pull, has been approved. The moral? Don't pull this shit or you'll get dumped. Rewriting all of our reports in the new environment is going to be expensive, but cheaper, in the long run, than dealing with that sleazy company.
"and cannot go to the media as a last resort, if needed.'"
Is that a joke? What an interesting story that would be.
Whale
And they wonder why people resort to piracy?
In all seriousness, trying to force the consumer to do anything to save your business will ultimately drive them away. If you want to safeguard your business, stop making a poor product, work with your customers to fix issues, give decent support, and stop trying to legally tie their hands behind their backs.
This is akin to legal DRM. All it does to legitimate customers is push them away; software piracy seems like the only recourse. Companies have to learn that this is the kind of stuff that we won't stand for if it is ever to change.
-SaNo
My ERP vendor takes an entirely different strategy of providing miserable tech support, denying the existence of obvious bugs, claiming the the 1960s technology on the back end is better than modern day RDMS, and having their tech support staff focus on minute tiny details that aren't relevant to the problem whenever you ask them for a solution.
I'd switch ERPs in a heartbeat, if the economy would recover.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
my ass is on fire you dick face
Call customer support for assistance. Depending on your level of support, we may have a technician on site to deal with your ass fire in as little as 24 hours.
Please do not attempt to solicit help extinguishing your ass from any other source, as this would violate your terms of service. Also, you are reminded that comparing notes with other customers regarding the cost, support level, or any other aspect of your ass extinguishing service will likewise be in violation of the terms of your contract.
Thank you for choosing Enterprise Ass Extinguishing Services for all your ass fire extinguishing needs. A sales representative will contact you following the successful extinguishing of your ass fire for your feedback.
Not sure how it works in the USA be here in Australia any legal contract that misrepresents consumer rights as stated in legislated consumer law can leave a company open to a AU$10,000 fine for each infringement found. A few years back I remember a case were someone got hurt by flying debris on a race track and the owner denied responsibility because on the back of the ticket it said the patrons had no rights to claim damages. Well it went to court the track owner not only had to pay the medical bills and damages but was dragged back into court for fraud and misrepresenting consumer law.
Well, it IS a bit unusual for a company with which you have a vendor relationship to send YOU an order, but if your company makes the best in a variety of gags and other imprisonment equipment and they have a specific use for them, then there could be perfectly reasonable explanations as to why they might want to...
What?
That's not it?
Oh.
Doesn't matter. In fact, makes more sense, really, there's not much business in the gag industry. Might raise some eyebrows, especially with a company acting as a vendor to others. However, everybody needs a good laugh now and then, and if your company makes some decent gags and other tomfoolery to go around, then I can certainly...
What NOW?
It isn't?
Are you serious?
Well, that IS a bit shameful, then. I mean, your company's time and effort is very important, and it can't be stuck wasting both dealing with phony "gag" orders. In fact, there should be laws against it, though I get the feeling these are a bunch of punk kids trying to...
Look, if you're going to keep interrupting me...
What do you MEAN "wrong again"?!?
*sigh* All right, fine, YOU make your own damn comments, all right?
Honestly, can't figure out just what it is you people want from me...
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
It is not your customer's responsibility to make your business model work. If you can't get business the way you're doing things, then don't do things that way.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
If you're a CIO, and you sign something like this, you should lose your job.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Buying that candy bar with your credit card likely cost the merchant money. There's a base transaction fee (75 cents at the place I managed), a purchase percentage fee (Master/Visa was 2%, Discover 3% and AmEx 5%) that they keep, a card rejection fee (swipe an expired card and you just cost them another 25 cents to tell you it was expired), etc.
So, at best, your $1 candy bar cost the merchant 77-80 cents in just transaction fees, in addition to the 50 cents or so they paid to actually purchase the bar for you to buy... In other words, he just lose about 30 cents to sell it to you... In addition to that, there are fees just to check your balance for the day, fees to request a payment from your processor, etc. Debit cards are slightly cheaper to process, but overall, the break even point for the restaurant I used to manage was about $5 per transaction. Guess what we set the minimum transaction at?
We only started taking cards because so many people don't carry cash these days, so we were turning customers away. Most are quite understanding about the minimum transaction once we explain why we have it. We do make exceptions for regulars or if someone just bought $30 worth of food and forgot to order some fries or something. You might not like it, however, we can't stay in business long if we're losing money on every transaction, so where are you going to buy your candy bar from then, your high horse?
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
In large enterprises, the "click through license" usually means nothing. Lawyers have gotten together to determine the true agreement.
But, some of those signed agreements are really, really stupid - sorta like the finance guy who would search ebay for better pricing on Cisco $150k switches. Idiot.
The PHB is usually a huge idiot when it comes to software. He/she got where they were by demanding action "install CRM this year", then holding all pay raises for 10,000 people in IT hostage until it is done.
Where I worked, Microsoft gave us a bunch of BPM free software. It turns out they needed some sucker/company to stress test it. What a joke. There software performance was tied to how big/fast your MS-SQL server clusters were since **every** transaction, no matter how short lived, had to be put into the DB. In the end, it couldn't keep up and we wasted 9 months with MS engineering/support. We deployed a few IBM P-series servers with 24 CPUs and switched to a UNIX BPM solution that could scale the way we needed in just a few months. Done.
The 120 windows servers were never fully reused before their warranties ran out. MS hadn't certified anything on VMs at the time.
I'm probably violating an agreement talking about this now. That was under company that was bought out by an even larger company a few years ago.
ERP - Today's shibboleth for software nobody needs obfuscated by an acronym nobody understands.
Does this mean the CRM and HRM rage is over?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Wow, the place you worked was being ripped off. We pay much less than that per transaction and nothing if the card is rejected for any reason.
I don't know, but it works for me.
I used to get weird contacts with all sorts of idiotic conditions. Best way to handle them, is to put the pressure back on them. Negotiate everything else and leave those until the final second, when the vendors are counting the money in their head and, then take out a large felt pen put a solid line through the conditions your don't like and initial each line with a pen and see if the salesman and in turn the sales manager can walk away from the sale and the commission.
Always remember that the sales staff are fighting to get every cent they can out of their 'own' company, any lost sale is personally bad for them and any future problems with the contract, months or years down track is 'somebody else's problem'. Other interesting things are, give an opportunity to their sales manager to demonstrate how much better they are at negotiating with the customer than the salesmen, even though they give you everything you want, they are still getting the sale when the salesmen failed and, of course simply call their bluff and see if they are truly willing to sue the customer in front of every other potential customer.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen