Ray Wang has published recent data on third party maintenance.
Two things stand out. Customers are hungry for third party maintenance. They cannot find too many public choices for third party maintenance (I know on a one off basis they can find many offshore and other firms to also do it on the quiet).
Ergo – opportunity for the original publisher. The software vendor. The first party maintainer.
Read the data, guys. These are YOUR customers. Quit blaming the 3PM guys and suing them and threatening them. They are the messenger.
Every market organizes into a bell curve. It’s something Alfred Sloan recognized and institutionalized into GM divisions almost a century ago. The Chevy buyer is different from the Caddy buyer.
Same with sw maintenance. There are customers who just want base bug fixe and regulatory updates, and others who want full boat innovation. Treat them differently, and price them differently. Not just a 5% difference in maintenance rates, a 50 to 60% difference.
The 3PM market awaits. YOUR customers!!
