Health insurance is a hot topic right now. While there are many opinions about how insurance should be managed and provided, one fairly common theme is the thought that insurance is important. Understanding the importance of insurance, can we insure the software products we so often depend on for the success of our business?
Software support programs often offer that insurance. When presented with support options, one should consider the following questions:
1. How important to my business is this software?
2. Do I have the in-house staff available to fix any problems?
One way to evaluate importance is to measure the overall cost to your business if a certain software program were to be unavailable for a period of time, or restricted in its use because of a usability issue. Does that cost exceed the cost of the support program?
An in-house IT staff may be able to help in a lot of situations, but you should evaluate the specific software and decide if it is something you can support in-house. A lot of today’s software is offered as a SaaS service and access to systems is often limited. A support program may be vital for these software packages.
Some companies are so confident in software support programs that they give the software away for free and only charge for the support program. In these cases the programs usually include things like product updates. Others charge for the software and the support, usually offering product updates with the purchase of the software. For organizations doing project based work, project management software is becoming a mission-critical part of the way every organization does business—making it very important to keep the software up-to-date and operating efficiently.
Although opinions on the best software business model differ, one thing is certain, support and services are important.
