Consulting

Can your company afford consulting from Disruptech?

Yes you can. Disruptech earns it's consulting fees by reducing expenses in your IT budget. If Disruptech can't save you money, there are no consulting fees. If we do save you money, we ask for a commission on savings.

Perhaps the question you should ask is whether your company afford not to give our consulting services a try.

Internal Software License Audit

A typical software license audit is not something most companies look forward to, and for good reason. Organizations such as the Federation against Software Theft (FAST) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) encourage your employees to notify them of copyright infringement which could be taking place within your company.

The Internal Software License Audit is, as the name implies, internal to the client company. What makes it special is that the purpose of the audit is to save money for the client company, rather than to see how much money a software vendor can wring from your company's IT budget by their intrusive and intimidating tactics.

Instead of looking for un-licensed installations of proprietary software, we will look for any unnecessary proprietary software licenses you already own which need not be renewed. This can add up to significant savings in your company's IT budget. The fee for this service is a commission on the savings achieved by the "audit".

Ways to Save

Negotiate Volume Licensing from a Position of Strength

It is generally a good idea when negotiating with software vendors, to talk to their competitors. Remember to let them know you're discussing options with their competitors in order to pressure them to improve their offer. Even if you're not really considering their competitor, it's not wise to let any vendor think they're you're only option.

Delay Upgrades

Another opportunity to save comes from delaying upgrades of proprietary software such as Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, or Adobe Creative Suite. Software companies may offer negotiable volume-licensing deals for large companies. The cost of a volume-license deal may decrease if you bide your time. The closer you get to the next version release, the less the upgrade to the prior version may cost.

Skip Upgrades

You may be able to skip a version entirely and wait for the next upgrade if the last upgrade was not sufficiently compelling to justify more spending. Many companies have not upgraded from Microsoft Windows XP to Vista and many don't even consider it to be an upgrade at all.

Replace Proprietary Software with Free and Open Source Software

One big and growing opportunity to save money arises when a Free or Open Source (FOSS) software exists as a _viable_ alternative to proprietary software which is currently used. 

Selecting Free and Open Source Software

1. First and foremost, software should meet the functional requirements
2. If more than one software vendor has products or services which meet the functional requirements, there are other questions to ask about software and service vendors:
   
   • Which vendor has more market or mind-share?
   • Do they have the support of the developer community?
   • Is support increasing or declining and if so, why? 
   • Do they respect your need for autonomy?  

Conclusion

Aspersions have been cast upon Free and Open Source software by proprietary software companies over the years. These proprietary software companies have been trying to instill the idea in people's minds that proprietary software is the safest choice and that Free and Open Source Software is risky.

If Free and Open Source Software can replace proprietary software without hampering operations and save your company on over-priced software licenses, the real risk is continuing the use of proprietary software while your competitors embrace Free and Open Source Software.