As we approach the end of a budget year, it is amazing to me the way the office changes. Overtime is cut back, yet, spending which was not a high priority previously suddenly gets a rush order. All of this spending has caused us to take a look at our support contracts and evaluate what is needed.
Frankly, I think it should be done several times a year, because it is easy to forget what is needed and what isn’t, apparently. I looked at the list and noticed several products we were licensing each year that we had never installed or used. Over the course of 4 years, that is an expense of over $40,000! Despite such seemingly ‘wasteful’ spending, a co-worker just spent the past four months justifying $70,000 software from Quest Software, that had an annual recurring cost of about $12,000.
It still boggles my mind the way some of this stuff works. Some of the support we pay for is never used, and other support that we attempt to cash in on is met with vendors who don’t understand their own software, which is more frustrating than not using it.