Analyst Forrester has compared aggressive software sales staff to Fifty Shades of Grey‘s eponymous protagonist after accusing them of trying to exploit grey areas in licensing rules to claw cash from end users.

Forrester’s researcher for sourcing and vendor management professionals, Duncan Jones, said some vendor sources admitted to him that licence audits are so aggressive that they can generate between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of their licensing revenue.

“Although a lot of that will represent deliberate or reckless under-licensing, many of the disputes that I hear about involve software salespeople abusing some licensing shades of grey to pressurise customers into paying them money,” he said. “It is difficult to predict how a court will interpret nineties contract language in the current technology context, so many companies pay up rather than risk a compliance lawsuit.

“Any procurement or asset-management professionals who have seen the new movie based on E L James’ bestselling novels may have noticed the similarity between the eponymous antihero and a licence-management services consultant,” he said.

SOURCE: channelweb.co.uk