Learning, Technology & Change

There appears to be a growing revolt against the boilerplate approach to software maintenance pricing(see zdnet ). As a vendor, I appreciate how much revenue this draws in. At the same time from a customer standpoint it can be a challenge in today's cost-cutting environment. The idea of declining fees or a customer-specific agreement are an interesting and at the same time troubling idea. Successful software companies are often judged on their maintenance revenue. A company relying on just implementation dollars could be considered a consulting company. This will change the way software companies are valued, and force them to create new Is the customer actively applying updates? Is the customer constantly calling for support or new enhancements? Perhaps the fee would be based on some level of activity metric. Do you have new users entering the system? Rolling out a new phase? Maybe some sort of rolling average factoring support calls, implementations and active users. This seems to...

There's a report today about how the Chinatown Business Improvement Area has hired private security to get rid of panhandlers. The toronto council is being called out for not meeting the needs of the city. "City council should be putting more cops on the streets to address this!" I don't know if that's the answer. Maybe I'm too far down the left-wing but using cops / security to remove panhandlers is a response to a symptom without any regard for the cause. Adding cops is just a nimby attitude. One response was to highlight how McDs & Timmy's are actively recruiting (TV & Radio spots) for employees thus people must be Choosing to panhandle. When you're of no fixed address I suppose it's difficult to receive a call for an interview. I also wonder how open managers are to the idea of hiring people down on their luck, since homeless are normally treated as criminals. To me the idea that panhandlers make more money than a legitimate job seems ...