Office 2010, the latest version of Microsoft’s office productivity suite, will ship to business users on 12 May. The product tackles document sharing by using SharePoint 2010 to allow users to share Office documents. It also features Office Web Apps, which enables users to view and make light edits to Word and Excel documents through their browser. Microsoft Office 2010 also allows users to work offline through new software - SharePoint Workspace 2010. According to Microsoft, when users reconnect their laptop to the network, the changes they made while offline will be synchronised. Businesses and consumers who purchase and activate [...]

Hewlett-Packard has advised resellers and customers with immediate project requirements to seek alternatives to its c-Class blade system based on Cisco switches as component shortages have brought supply to a standstill. The issue stems from the difficulties encountered by HP’s one-time partner Cisco, which has been struggling to supply the channel with certain enterprise kit. HP is working closely with Cisco to resolve the problem but could offer no timeframe for the situation to improve. “At the present no supply is available to clear the current backlog or complete any new orders. Customers who have immediate project requirements should consider alternatives,” [...]

Continuing on from last week’s theme, we’ve had a few comments asking for some more negotiation Quick Tips. So here we go:
1/ Always separate the people from the problem
2/ Focus on interests not positions
3/ Generate options before you start, and then continue to generate new options as the negotiation develops
4/ Don’t be too rigid; aim to be flexible
5/ Be aware when the time requires assertiveness, or passivity, or manipulation or aggression
6/ Know what you want
7/ If you don’t ask, you don’t get
8/ Find out what they want
9/ Control the time; you decide what happens and when
10/ Ask Silver Bullet to [...]

Purchasing IT and associated service agreements can be daunting for any business. Mark Bartrick, Managing Director at Silver Bullet Associates advises businesses to be careful. At a recent IT Forum dinner, Mark was asked to outline some quick tips on how to successfully negotiate IT contracts.
If a business lacks IT negotiation experience, turn to a consultant. 
Consultants like Silver Bullet Associates can save businesses a lot of time and money because they have ‘been there, done that’ before.  
Remember that all contracts are negotiable.
While a vendor might say a client is getting its standard contract, it is only standard because [...]

Beware; the SAPman cometh. It appears as though SAP will be including new language into their licencing Agreements which may limit the contractual rights of its customer, potentially disallowing any future termination of maintenance and support services.  Hidden within a plethora of recent SAP announcements was the fact that SAP’s plans now include new language that suggests the only way it will contemplate any kind of maintenance and support services termination is if it applies to all its licensed software.  Clearly, SAP is responding to increased threats of competing support alternatives which allow SAP users to have some elements of [...]

According to various sources, the most effective strategies applied by businesses last year to help reduce their IT costs were 1/ encourage remote and mobile working, 2/ deploy more cost effective technology, 3/ negotiate lower IT costs with their incumbent IT suppliers, 4/ deploy open source applications, and 5/ standardise on one application platform. Many businesses were loathe to lose staff or to outsource as a quick fix. Silver Bullet Asociates helped many businesses negotiate cost savings and cost reductions with their IT suppliers last year and we are looking forward to doing the same this year. In fact, we’ve already [...]

Upgrade prices were mysteriously absent from Microsoft’s Office 2010 pricing information, which they revealed last week. Microsoft has said “we are not offering upgrade pricing for Office 2010. Based on partner and customer feedback we’ve made many changes to the Office 2010 line-up designed to simplify the product line-up and pricing in the retail space. Removing version upgrades was one of those decisions. This reduces the number of products that our retail partners need to manage and also reduces customer confusion about which version of Office they should purchase.” This seems like a straightforward answer: take the upgrade option away, [...]

SAP is changing because it needs to find different ways to make money. Companies like SAP and Oracle are under some pressure to generate more revenues from their customer base. They are spending more time farming their client base for new revenues than they are hunting for new clients. So if you thought you had signed a big cheque to SAP a few years ago and that would be that, then think again. You’ve probaby noticed that your SAP sales rep is calling at least once a quarter now and his support team will be mining deep into your organisation [...]

The downturn has given organisations the opportunity to revisit their software licences and maintenance contracts to make cost savings. David Chan, City University London’s director for the Centre for Information Leadership, encouraged businesses to use their commercial leverage to negotiate. “Perhaps you are intending to extend a service contract in a year’s time. By offering a longer commitment the supplier may well drop the rates.” He also said that users should seek external advice from the likes of Gartner which helps to renegotiate multi-million pound contracts, and for deals with a ticket value of £2m or below users should use firms [...]

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’.