We've all been there. It's the end of a software company's presentation showing you how their application will be able to solve all your problems. Life with them will be total bliss. You find yourself eager to sign up and put the pain of your current software application behind you.
What's the antidote for the spell that good sales people put on you? Ask for a copy of their end user license agreement (EULA). Here you'll find all the caveats and disclaimers that will bring you back down from Cloud 9 and let you see reality for what it is.
I recently read through the EULA for a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software package for Federal acquisitions (yes, I have a very exciting life!). Their marketing collateral promotes how they are a flexible solution that you can easily adapt to your agency's specific needs by modifying application workflow, but their EULA reveals they are still a traditional COTS application with limitations that have frustrated Federal contract management staff for years.
Here are the key facts potential buyers need to know with references to specific language in this EULA.
If you don't purchase upgrades, you will lose support. This vendor's maintenance agreement only includes "dot" updates (e.g. 2.6), not full releases (e.g. 3.0). With this vendor, your ability to evolve is contingent upon buying a steady stream of upgrades.
Appian customers paying annual maintenance get all updates and future releases at no charge. For example, when Appian introduced built-in social collaboration and native mobile clients on iOS, Android, and Blackberry nearly two years ago, every one of our active maintenance customers with named user licenses got that additional functionality for free.
If you make any agency-specific modifications, you can't install service packs until the vendor folds your modification into the core code, which happens only 1-2 times per year. Same goes for little "fixes" you request to improve user experience. You'll likely have to wait 6-12 months to get them. And those changesÖ yeah, they are going to cost you since the COTS vendor has to do them.
With Appian, you are in full control of your application. Your team can make whatever changes you want and put them live at your leisure.
Any "defects" you discover will only be fixed subject to the decision of the vendor's Change Control Board. This highlights an inherent weakness in COTS software. It's impossible for a COTS vendor to make all the changes every customer wants so their "review boards" have to decide which customers to disappoint.
With Appian, there is no review board. You have full control of your application.
You can't change anything or share modifications without the vendor's consent and any enhancements you jointly develop become the property of the vendor.
Appian couldn't be more different. It's easy to export the models you build with our product and share them with other users on our vibrant online forums. We encourage our customers to share and leverage each other's work.
The Chief Information Officers of the Federal Government recognize that software licenses like this are part of the main reason why the government's IT investments have performed so poorly. The need for true flexibility in acquisition software is being clearly expressed by Federal acquisition staffs. All vendors want to show that their products can be ultimately flexible. It's up to buyers to get past the spell of a good sales presentation and see the reality of the product they will actually be buying. For that, there's no substitute for reading the EULA.
Vice President of Solutions (and someone who actually reads EULAs)
Appian is a software company that automates business processes. The Appian AI Process Platform includes everything you need to design, automate, and optimize even the most complex processes, from start to finish. The world's most innovative organizations trust Appian to improve their workflows, unify data, and optimize operations—resulting in better growth and superior customer experiences.