CIOs and IT directors are attempting to slash IT maintenance costs, as a matter of urgency, to free up their budgets.

On the one hand, hardware and software maintenance represents the single largest IT expense for many organisations, but it’s also a huge source of revenue for IT vendors. This conflict presents many problems for IT consumers.

Gartner has recently produced a list of recommended negotiable items:

1. The right to regular, appropriate, predictable updates to software products
2. The right to clearly defined response times and IT support levels based on application criticality and other business factors
3. The right to reasonable, predictable percentage ranges for yearly maintenance fee increases – or decreases – as well as long-term caps on increases in maintenance costs
4. The right to end or change support at any time for products that are not in use
5. The right to reasonable, predictable levels of support throughout product and contract life cycles
6. The right to reasonable, clearly defined maintenance and support for legacy systems

As a starting point for any contract negotiations, this is a good way to get started.