Merry Christmas to all our clients and to anyone involved in IT Procurement. Let’s hope 2010 is a better year for businesses everywhere. Budget cuts and financial squeezes have affected everyone this year and many are still struggling. So let’s all be positive that 2010 brings with it new found optimism and a genuine economic recovery. We have saved a lot of money for our clients this year and we plan on helping even more businesses save even more in 2010. As the TESCO adverts say, ‘every little helps’.

A leaked document setting out the government’s IT strategy for the next five years is “complacent” and lacks ambition, the Conservatives say. The paper details plans to save billions through greater use of social media and innovations such as an online “apps store” for civil servants. The document, entitled Government ICT Strategy: New World, New Challenges, sets out how the government plans to harness computer technology to save cash and improve public services up to 2015. The bulk of the planned savings – £1.6bn – will come from the development of a government “cloud infrastructure” – a way of pooling computer systems which is meant to cut costs and energy consumption. The government plans to launch a prototype of what it calls the “G cloud” early next year, with a standard model to be introduced by the end of 2010. The document also outlines plans to develop 10 to 12 strategic data centres, which it says will bring together “existing public data centres into highly secure and resilient facilities”, which it claims will save £300m a year and cut power consumption by 75%.

According to the Conservatives, the report fails in its aim of showing how the government can get to grips with the “systemic failures in public sector IT procurement over the past decade,” such as the “calamitous” NHS database. Let’s hope that whoever is in Government over the next 5 years spends our taxes more wisely than has been the case in the last 5 years.

Enterprise software vendor SAP has postponed the introduction of a controversial, more expensive support package, named Enterprise Support, until next year. The announcement shortly follows the resignation of two user group representatives from the project evaluating whether Enterprise Support would benefit customers. SAP announced in 2008 that Enterprise Support – which costs 22% of license fees annually, up from 17% in the current standard package – would be mandatory for all customers. A backlash from users forced the company to postpone the support plan until it could prove that the more expensive plan would benefit its customers.

Oracle’s $7.4bn bid for Sun has met a stumbling block in the EU, as European antitrust regulators raised concerns that database competition could be damaged, specifically that Sun’s MySQL competed directly with Oracle databases. However, the UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG) has backed the proposed Oracle takeover bid of Sun in a letter to the European Commissioner. UKOUG’s 1,500 members represent half of the UK and Ireland Oracle customer base. This merger is a huge deal for Oracle and will affect a lot of their strategic thinking and plans. So they are desperate to get approval from the EU. In the meantime, Silver Bullet Associates recommends that buyers should make hay from the uncertainty and negotiate hard with both Sun and Oracle.

Never Accept the First Offer. Be Persistent. Support Your Argument with Facts. Identify Throwaway’s. Set Ground Rules. Control the Environment. Know Your Opponent’s BATNA. Look at the Big Picture. Be Thick Skinned. Improve Your Problem Solving Skills. Be Open-Minded. Be Decisive.  Don’t Mistake Wants for Needs. Learn from Your Mistakes. Don’t Leave the Table on a Sour Note. Know when to Bluff. Document the Agreement. Get Help from an External Negotiation Advisor if you are Not Familiar with the Supplier.

Just Ask for What You Want. Don’t be Afraid to Take Risks. Thoroughly Prepare. Leave Your Ego at the Door. Listen Intently. Be Prepared for Surprises. Leverage Your BATNA (Best Alternative to No Agreement). Avoid Argument. Don’t be afraid to Walk Away. Clarify Expectations. Separate People from the Issues. Discover Your Opponent’s Motivation. Never Make a Concession without a Trade-Off. Be Bold. Role Play Negotiation Situations with Colleagues. Aim High. Be Organized. Ask an Expert Negotiator to be Your Mentor.

There are many times when it is better to negotiate using an email, fax or letter.  Lawyers do it all the time.  Put your initial offer on paper and don’t let them see the smirk on your face.  Negotiation letters, emails and faxes can have the advantage of being cold and emotionless and they can mask your real emotions to your benefit.  Depending on your situation a little personal separation from the conflict could help turn the tides. Using letters, faxes or emails, allows you to have more time crafting your message.  If you are a naturally amiable person, then face to face negotiations may not be your strong suit. While using letters, faxes and emails to negotiate can be the right tactic, don’t use a letter when face to face would be better.  Letters should be used when they are an advantage, not to avoid conflict.  If avoiding conflict is your goal, take a look at why you are afraid. 

Windows 7 owners are having problems installing their new operating system, especially over Vista, according to comments on Microsoft’s support site. Many find their installation goes into infinite reboot after 62% of the installation is complete. Switching off and rebooting doesn’t help either because the system no longer recognises the older operating system. Microsoft says the problem occurs because the Iphlpsvc service stops responding during the upgrade. But others may also be to blame. One user who followed Microsoft’s fix said it took 48 hours to get a working installation, with installation runs taking 10 hours a time. Even then he had to delete his wireless card and get the operating system to find it again. Sounds like something to be avoided until Microsoft get their bug fixes sorted.

Mark Bartrick, MD at IT Negotiation Advisors Silver Bullet Associates says “end users approach the buying process in many different ways”. Some opt for a single supplier – the so-called “one throat to choke” strategy. Others buy from multiple suppliers to keep everyone honest. Most feel the multi-supplier approach is the way to go, but it’s a slippery slope. How many suppliers does it take before the pros outweigh the cons? Having too many suppliers on hand can dramatically increase cost of management and reduce overall efficiency. Negotiating a better price is always a balancing act. Suppliers often give deeper discounts to those who buy more of their stuff. So, while negotiation power can be improved with competition, actually buying from many suppliers can limit volumes and therefore discounts over time. Bids should be competitive, and exit strategies considered, but it makes sense from a pricing perspective to pool purchases with a smaller number of suppliers once the negotiations are done. No two environments are the same, but a good rule of thumb is to have no more than three different suppliers for any given product or service to keep costs under control and minimize complexity.

Computer Weekly recently surveyed 500 users to find out how likely they are to deploy open source software in their businesses, given the current economic crisis. The majority of respondents were positive about open source software, with a quarter (26%) already using it. A further 45% stated that they were likely to use it, even if only for some functions. Use of open source software appears to be more common among smaller organisations (those with less than 50 employees) and organisations with turnover under £10m. Cash is king with smaller businesses who often don’t have the deep financial pockets of a large organisation, so it’s no surprise that SME’s are the biggest advocates of open source products during the current economic difficulties. But Silver Bullet Associates believes that the take up of open source will continue on apace even after the recession is over for many reasons, and not just cost. Breaking the restrictive chains imposed by proprietary software vendors is one great reason to think open source. So it won’t be just SME’s that embrace open source; everyone will use it at some point soon and the mainstream software vendors will have to find another way of making revenue hay as their sun wanes.