Software - Your Risk or Mine?

How come the buyer has to accept all the risks when it comes to software? This document describes how it doesn’t have to be like this.

That Sinking Feeling

Don’t you always get a sinking feeling when you sign the check for an expensive piece of software? Have you made the right decision? Will it really do what you want? What are you going to do if it turns out to be a bad buy?

The sales guy’s very happy of course, it doesn’t come much better than seeing customers pay up. If the software turns out not to be very useful to the customer that is really not his problem. Bugs and tech support can be handled by someone else. Basically it a case of caveat emptor -- buyer beware -- the buyer takes the financial and usability risks, while the vendor takes virtually no risk.

Perhaps this is being a bit cynical, but I’m also sure that most of us have bought software that we don’t use very much, that turned out not to be very good when we came to use it, and was poor value for money. The safest -- and I suspect most common strategy -- is to keep quiet about it and hope the boss doesn’t notice. If pressed you will likely defend your purchase -- to save face -- but however you look at it it’s not a nice feeling.

I remember getting a company I worked for to spend $12,000 on a piece of software. I should have known better, but none of us are infallible. Once we’d bought it, the software was buggy, slow and seriously didn’t do much more that the tool we were already using (the same tool but a version from 10 years previously). I was really embarrased about it, and I never forgave the supplier of the tool, even to this day 5 years after the event.

Vendors are not unduly upset about this. They need to sell you their products to stay in business. In fact you need them to sell more too, so that you stand a chance of getting value out of your annual maintenance contract. If they don’t sell enough, drop your product, or go out of business, you could be left stranded. In any case the fact remains that the financial responsibility, and the risk to get value from the software, remains pretty much with you. Once you’ve paid you are stuck with it.

Redressing the balance

Wouldn’t you be happier if the risks were a bit more evenly spread, or even better, tipped in your favor? How about basing the value of software, not on the cost that a vendor imposes, but on the actual value that you get out of it? So that something you use every day becomes priceless, and something you never use, no matter how clever the code, becomes worthless. Now you’d have a sensible measure of the value of a piece of software. Perhaps you think this is an unachievable, a totally unrealistic goal?

First you need to get rid of the vendor. No vendor means you would not be under pressure from sales guys to buy something that may or may not suit your needs, you could make your own decisions.

Second you need the freedom to change your mind. If you start with something and it proves not to be much use you have to be able to dump it for something else.

Third you need it to be cheaper. You can’t afford to try everything just to see if it proves useful.

Open source software provides many of the desirable features that you need. There is no vendor in the traditional sense, so no sales pressure on you. There is nothing to force you to choose one solution over another, other than you deciding what’s best for you and using it. Once you’ve decided, use it wherever you need to, as many copies as you like.

And best of all you are not exposed to a big financial risk. The software is free or low cost. Even when you factor in support and maintenance you are still only paying a fraction of the cost of a commercial offering.

Sounds like a better balance, and a much better deal to me.

About the Author

Denis Laverty Denis Laverty possesses more than 17 years experience in network management and communications, Denis has been involved with network management applications from the early DOS days; as product trainer, technical author and QA Director. In 2003 he co-founded OPENXTRA together with Jack Hughes and serves as its Managing Director.