Misalignment - What Enterprises Want From Their Vendors

The Disconnect on Software Support, Bug Fixes and Upgrades

I facilitated a "Birds of a Feather" session at the recent Enterprise Connect Conference that was entitled "Coping with software upgrades, bugs and version control." Although it was an early morning session following an evening of vendor-sponsored parties, it was well attended and enjoyed a high level of end user participation.

In general, there was a significant level of dissatisfaction with how the vendors handle software upgrades. Key elements of this are:

• Misalignment of upgrades with enterprise needs – End users only want to upgrade when there is a perceived benefit (i.e. new feature that is desirable, important bug fix, potential regulatory required). End Users expressed that they are pressured by vendors to upgrade even when they have no perceived benefit. 
  
  
• Many attendees indicated that they remain on older software releases because they do not perceive value in the new features of the new release. All participants in the session indicated that they have annual software subscription payments, so it seems the enterprise is not receiving the full value of this expense.
  
  
• Bug Fixes – End users complained that they experienced problems in getting bugs fixed or patches unless they put significant effort into their communications with the vendor. Escalation by the vendor of an issue to a high priority wasn’t generally seen as a problem; the amount of time to receive an appropriate fix was the problem. In addition, the vendors typically required that the enterprise upgrade to the latest release before working on the issue. 
  
  
  • Attendees indicated that this is an industry-wide issue (with no vendor being singled out for handling this well).
    
    
• Challenges in Upgrading – This issue has a couple of different components. The end user change management process for a mid-size or large organization takes time to receive approval and must be juggled with many other vendor upgrades for maintenance window times. A second component is that some end users indicated that they have had problems with the upgrades not working correctly.

• Lack of Regression Testing – Users complained that they had experienced new software releases that fixed known issues only to have the newly installed software cause new problems or other issues. They attributed this to the lack of proper regression testing by the vendors, including: 
  
  
• the new software on older hardware versions (a typical situation)
• Integrations
• Operating system differences  

When I polled the attendees, the majority indicated that they did not have a proper internal test bed that could be used for pre-production testing and "shaking out obvious bugs" of new releases. The lack of an internal test bed was attributed to cost and staff time – especially for the mid-size enterprises.

These are age old issues that have existed pretty much since Commercial off the Shelf Software (COTS) came into being. Vendors are unable to do full regression testing and enterprises are challenged to sustain existing systems. I believe that the ability to shift responsibility to a third party (i.e. Cloud Provider, Managed Services Provider) remains an attractive option for many of these enterprises.