12 Signs It’s Time to Dump Your Software Vendor

If Cosmopolitan magazine teaches us anything, it’s that all relationships—whether with a new beau, a nagging mother-in-law or serial-cheater spouse—can be analyzed, dissected and fixed in just a couple hundred words (fewer, preferably).

Managing the ongoing relationships and business dealings with traditional on-premise software vendors can be equally vexing. With that in mind, here’s the first-ever, Cosmo-inspired Enterprise Software Unplugged “Guide to Managing Your Software Vendor Relationships.” If any of these scenarios sound familiar, it might be time to give that vendor the boot!

You need a vertical solution, but all he’s interested in is horizontal platforms.

He’s terrified of the “C” word: The “Cloud” makes him really nervous.

Your friends and colleagues all are telling you that your vendor’s on-premise software is “so 1990s,” and that there’s a new guy in town: “Hello, Software-as-a-Service!”

Your passive-aggressive CEO keeps mentioning that the “client engagement” has gone on far too long without a firm completion date from the vendor. (Says she: “You know they’re thinking: ‘Why buy the cow, when you can keep getting the milk for free.'”)

You swear that he inadvertently said “I FUD You” the other night, instead of “I Love You.” Arrrrgggghhhhh!!

All he wants to talk about are “upgrades and maintenance fees,” and all you want to hear about are “value proposition and long-term partnership.”

You’ve been noticing all that SaaS “eye candy” out there. That Web-based interface is one sexy GUI! Your decades’-old software package? More like Joe Six-Pack.

Your software sales guy still doesn’t get it that you don’t want him to solve your every problem!! You just want to be listened to sometimes.

After signing a $100 million deal, he now refers to you as “Suitey”—not “Sweetie.” 🙁

A former customer of your current software vendor says the vendor is a “skank.” Is she just a “psycho crazy ex”? Or is there more to it?!

Does he have to include a Star Wars or Old School reference in every single e-mail!! I don’t care who Blue is or that he’s “your boy”!!

You asked him to tell you something he’d never told any other customer before. His response: Your software implementation was a perfect 10—the only one his company had ever seen. (And you believed him!)

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