Silver Bullet Associates

How to download MS Office 2010 at no additional cost

mark — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:54:49 +0000

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 Office 2007 - or a new PC running Office 2007 - between 5 March 2010 and 30 September 2010 will be able to download Office 2010 at no additional cost. To qualify for the free upgrade, users also need a Windows Live ID and must claim it before 31 October 2010 by visiting Microsoft’s Technology Guarantee page.

HP tells BladeSystem buyers to consider alternatives

mark — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:10:52 +0000

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,” said an HP spokesman.

Negotiating basics

mark — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:40:15 +0000

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 coach and mentor you if you feel unsure about what to do or when

Remember; negotiation is fun, negotiation is good, and negotiation makes the world go round.

Some quick tips to help you negotiate better deals with your IT suppliers

mark — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:16:55 +0000

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 the vendor says so. If you don’t like it, negotiate a better one.

When it comes to pricing, the devil is in the details.
Itemise bundled pricing. Demand clarity of discounting. Spread payments out. Just like working with a home contractor, paying for everything at once can reduce leverage with a vendor if there’s a problem later. Also be sure contract cancellation policies are clear.

Be creative and persistent in efforts to lower prices.
If the sales rep can’t or won’t lower prices, ask who has the authority to do it and go to him or her.

Don’t accept the first price they offer.
You’ve got to push as hard as you can without destroying the long-term relationship.

Consider signing a multi-year contract in certain cases.
For emerging technologies, it may be better to go year-by-year, but for some software, a multi-year contract makes sense to get better pricing.

Get information from peers.
Talk to other businesses; compare notes on products and vendors.

Spell everything out.
Although it’s more work, put “deliverables”—specifics of what a product will do at what time—in the contract. It can even include consequences if the products don’t perform as expected. A service-level agreement might say, for example, that for every hour a server is down, the vendor credits the client money.

SAP licencing changes reduce your maintenance options

mark — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:47:46 +0000

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 their SAP portfolio supported by cheaper third parties. This “all or nothing” approach would appear tobe a straight forward attempt to eliminate a client’s ability to manage any kind of blended support solution and so reducing a client’s ability to pick and choose what is supported by SAP and what is not.

IT Cost Reduction; lessons from 2009

mark — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:03:57 +0000

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 made a fast start and have saved money for a handful of clients whose IT negotiations had drifted over from December.

Microsoft offers no upgrade versions to Office 2010

mark — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:56:25 +0000

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, and customers can only pick a full retail copy. Of course, this does mean customers have to pay more to upgrade to the new version of Office.

SAP asks clients to dig deep

mark — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:13:21 +0000

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 to create new opportunities if none are currently on your budget plans. And you’ll be well aware of the furore created when SAP announced it was planing to raise it’s annual software maintenance and support costs from 17% to 22%. Still, it’s no all bad news and there is some good news filtering out; SAP as long been working towards changing its software licencing pricing policy to give greater choice. While you can still choose to pay for the whole lot upfront, they can also offer phased payments and subscription licencing. Remember to ask your SAP sales rep for financing options whenever they present a proposal to you.

Lower your software licence fees

mark — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:14:57 +0000

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 like Silver Bullet Associates. You can read the full Computer Weekly article at http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/08/01/237406/lower-your-software-licence-fees.htm

Merry Christmas

mark — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:47:28 +0000

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’.