Insights for IT Negotiations

ServiceNow reported outstanding Q4 FY19 numbers and growth, beating analyst estimates. New CEO, Bill McDermott's, confidence in ServiceNow was evident as he clearly laid out their key priorities and go-to-market strategy for scaling ServiceNow and ultimately achieving their lofty 2020 goals. Enterprises should prepare to be approached by an aggressive and highly motivated sales force with precise...

Larry Ellison is trumpeting the huge technological advantage Oracle has in the database market and how this is the only autonomous database in the world. On Oracle’s recent Q2 earnings call, Mr. Ellison elaborated on the Autonomous Database’s benefits and their go-to-market land and expand approach. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdt...

Oracle has gone on record multiple times stating that Cloud ERP Applications and Autonomous Database are the two key product areas that will determine Oracle’s success. Larry Ellison has made some bold claims regarding both product categories. Jeff Lazarto discusses Oracle’s perspective of the Cloud ERP market and why they are claiming that they will eventually be the overwhelming winner in this g...

Looking at the current state of the market (cloud and on-premise) as well as the changes and announcements that Microsoft has made in the past helps us understand what the future could hold for the tech giant. Having a sense for what Microsoft is going to be focused on and the changes and behavior that comes with this, allows enterprises to better manage their strategic relationship with moving fo...

Predicting what this year holds for current ServiceNow enterprise customers is a bit of a challenge with former SAP CEO, Bill McDermott, now at the helm. However, when considering the recent announcements ServiceNow has made and what we know about McDermott, we can see that there are some clear directions they will take and potential changes in store. Being able to anticipate the direction Service...

When talking with enterprises about their strategic vendor relationships, we always consider what we have seen from the vendor in the past and what we are currently seeing in the market. But around this time of year, many conversations inevitably lead to what can be expected in the year ahead. In this podcast, Adam Mansfield shares his predictions for what we can expect from Salesforce in 2020 and...

Erwann Couesbot, UpperEdge's Oracle Practice Advisor and Java Expert, discusses the 2 main license agreements covering different versions of Java. This podcast highlights some of the key differences organizations have to consider to ensure that their Java usage is not out of compliance. Host: Erwann Couesbot: https://bit.ly/2WIKJdX Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3C8PnSR

Erwann Couesbot, UpperEdge's Workday expert discusses using Workday as a System Implementation partner over other Large SIs like Accenture, Deloitte, IBM etc. There are 3 common pricing models most SIs offer which you should be sure to ask Workday about if you choose them as your SI partner. Host: Erwann Couesbot: https://bit.ly/2WIKJdX Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2TTLjEO

Application Management Support (AMS) providers aren’t winning or preserving AMS awards based on rate arbitrage alone. In this podcast IT Sourcing & Commercial Advisory Practice Director, Greg Hall, explains how CIO’s, CTO’s, and infrastructure leaders want more from their AMS delivery providers.

Greg Hall, UpperEdge's IT Sourcing Advisor discusses how to maintain and control a fixed price outsourcing agreement and how to manage change with the introduction of Deadband, ARC and RRC metrics.

When it comes to the cloud, the thing Microsoft wants even more than revenue growth is accelerated usage of their cloud offerings (Office 365, Microsoft 365, Teams, etc.) by their enterprise customers. Microsoft is now looking to the open-source community as well as the consumer market to help drive enterprises to increase their cloud usage. In this podcast, Adam Mansfield shares his perspective o...

Erwann Couesbot UpperEdge's AWS Practice Advisor discusses AWS's Enterprise Discount Program and his take on the top 3 commercial terms any potential AWS enterprise customer should negotiate when considering this program.

Workday’s numbers are outstanding with 26% YoY growth, 28% subscription growth. Their execution and strategy are working well, they are seeing growth in HCM, Finance, Planning and Analytics products by adding six F500 customers and eleven Global 2000 customers. Customer satisfaction rate is over 97%, their customer base is over 3,000 and they’ve added over 400 employees. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s...

Salesforce beat Wall Street revenue and earnings estimates, posted 33% overall revenue growth for the quarter and had a net loss of $109M while maintaining previously raised full year guidance. During the earnings call, Chairman and Co-CEO, Marc Benioff also restated the lofty $35B revenue target for FY24. It is clear that in order to effectively double their revenue in five years, they will need...

One of the most eye-opening announcements made at Dreamforce came during Salesforce’s Investor Day Finance Review presentation where Salesforce set an ambitious goal for themselves - reach $35B revenue by FY24. The target itself is eye-catching but the fact that it will require them to double their revenue in just four years is even more noteworthy. In this podcast, Adam Mansfield shares his persp...

For many reasons, SAP customers are increasingly looking to refresh their SAP hosting strategy and turning to hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Given the pace of change in the hyperscaler market, there are many considerations that organizations should keep in mind as they evaluate their options. In this podcast, IT Sourcing and Commercial Advisory Practice Director, Justin...

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reported that revenue was up 20% but profits were down 23% in Q3 FY19. Profits were impacted significantly by the 25% increase in expenses associated with new employee additions largely tied to technical and sales roles at Google Cloud as well as Google Cloud’s ongoing investments in infrastructure. Alphabet is clearly betting on and significantly investing in Go...

When the Department of Defense (DoD) first issued an RFP for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (“JEDI”) last November, Oracle almost immediately filed a lawsuit claiming that the RFP process violated federal procurement law. After being removed from consideration, Oracle continued to go to court and lost on the grounds that Oracle failed to meet the requirements. Oracle has since appeale...

Microsoft had another strong quarter with overall revenue growing 14%. Its Q1 FY20 earnings call made it clear that Microsoft is going to rely on their ability to infuse innovation (like AI) into its offerings to differentiate themselves, increase customer spend, and win more business. In this podcast, Adam Mansfield shares his perspective on how Microsoft is performing and discusses what to expec...

Less than a month after his departure from SAP, it was announced that Bill McDermott will join ServiceNow by year-end 2019 as President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. He is replacing John Donahoe who is leaving to become Nike’s new CEO. McDermott will now have the chance to lead a cloud-only software company where he will bring not only his years of industry ex...

It’s always important to pay attention to how a vendor within your portfolio is performing and what is said in their earnings call but this is especially true when there is a CEO change as significant as the one that just happened at ServiceNow. Q3 FY19 is the first earnings call since the shocking announcement that CEO John Donahoe is being replaced by former SAP CEO, Bill McDermott. Their commen...

Outsourcing your Infrastructure Managed Services comes with its own sets of risks. Poor planning and preparation creates undue risks that could have been mitigated upfront. In this podcast, IT Sourcing & Commercial Advisory Practice Director, Greg Hall, shares five common risks that can derail your efforts, break your business case, and start you off on the wrong foot with your chosen provider. He...

There has been much confusion and anxiety around Java use this past year and many organizations are still not sure whether they are required to purchase a commercial license. Concerned about the potential financial exposure that could be tied to Java use in the event of an Oracle audit, many readers and clients sent us questions and comments in response to Senior Advisor, Erwann Couesbot’s blog, T...

This podcast is part of our Head in the Clouds series which covers the latest cloud computing news from the perspective of someone who helps enterprises improve their cloud vendor contractual relationships. This week, Adam shares his thoughts on Facebook’s unification of Workplace and Portal to further expand its current customer base of 3 Million paying Workplace users and increase adoption among...

The US Department of Interior is moving over 84,000 users back to Office 365 after its previous decision to go with Google despite the many challenges that come with such a massive change. Needless to say, this is clearly a significant loss for Google Cloud as they strive to ramp adoption of G Suite within the government and large enterprises. The optics associated with the government’s decision t...