There's nothing you've written below that indicates that your space is any different to mine. We have to ask questions up-front as well - we don't get to change things once a contract's been signed either.
How you want to buy a service is something you need to decide before you even go look at a EULA is my point. When you decide you need to produce some printed material, is the first thing you do "read a EULA"? Or is it decide whether to have a printer internally vs. using the local Kinkos/print house? I'd say that the latter question is far more important than worrying whether a printer supports your WiFi security standard. Cheers Ken -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Susan Bradley Sent: Wednesday, 23 July 2014 2:48 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... In small business we click yes to a eula. We don't get the ability to set the requirements as the software vendors don't give us options so we must ask the questions from the get go because we don't get the right to change anything. We either buy or don't buy the software. It's just a different space is all. On 7/22/2014 8:07 PM, Ken Schaefer wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Susan Bradley > Sent: Wednesday, 23 July 2014 12:49 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... > >> I just called up my cable company to reconfigure my ever increasing cable >> bill and renegotiated the costs. >> So the idea that cloud services has a defined cost structure I would debate >> on. > I didn't say you couldn't negotiate, or that they don't have different > service offerings. > > But you don't to work out what you're paying for their buildings, their > network, their labour, their taxes, their advertising, their monitoring and > so on, and so on. > > You pay $x/month, and you get a set of defined services (e.g. for a > telco it might be 500 minutes,500 text messages, voicemail and 5GB of > data - I don't really know what cable providers provide) > >> As the vendors themselves stop developing premises based software - >> (and this is the key movement I see in the SMB space) - because it's >> cheaper for them (less support for us pesky desktops with lord knows >> how many versions of OS), easier for them to build the infrastructure where >> they want it, and better for them as they can plan on the revenue >> subscription model. As Rod said, it's the app model taking over. > No, it's not the "app model" - it's "services". There is nothing particularly > special about most IT - it's just services. Has the whole IT Service > Management bandwagon passed this list by? > > Your company buys marketing services, legal services, property > management services, utility services (gas, electricity, water), > cleaning services, recruitment services and any other number of > "services" today. Most of IT, except a continually evolving core that > provides business differentiation, will also be bought as services. > [1] > > It could be provided internally by an internal service provider (just > like some companies have internal legal departments, and internal > marketing departments), or it could be provided by an external service > provider (outsourcer or cloud) > >> Ask the hard questions of the vendors ... Ask who has the encryption >> keys, etc etc > Who has the encryption keys is a details thing. First you need to know what > service you want and how much it's worth to you and how you want to buy it - > this is your service architecture. Implementation details are something you > can work out in your detailed requirements phase. > > Working out /how/ you want to buy a service is much harder question than who > has encryption keys. > > Cheers > Ken > > [1] the whole network/systems/security admin jobs are disappearing theme that > crops up here every so often is related to this, IMHO. Those types of roles > aren't particularly necessary for a lot of in-house environments any more. > Instead, they'll be provided as part of a service (again, by an internal SP, > or external SP). There may be a few environments (e.g. we have some payments > apps, that $1bn+/day pass through) which need dedicated infrastructure BAU > people. > > >
