Casual Creep, Seriously Deep

There's a strange trend going on out there when it comes to selecting enterprise software.

A totally polemic situation seems to have developed whereby organisations produce pages deep RFIs and multiple rounds of procurement decisions or use software which is aimed at the consumer market by osmosis, because users are familiar with it.

The likes of Dropbox and YouTube are true beneficiaries of the latter trend, and no one seems to really benefit from the former. By default that kind of process points to very expensive deployments that only companies with very deep pockets can afford to pursue.

The number of ostensibly serious organisations that are willing to sign up to YouTube's terms and conditions or use Dropbox's flawed security models is perplexing. Just a basic read through the YouTube T&Cs by a corporate lawyer should make any corporation run a mile. Let alone plastering your expensively produced videos with a Google logo!

But the rules have changed. Purchasing decisions within corporates seem to now be either discretionary (read: free or expense account) or enterprise (read thirty people have to buy into the software).

The result is that organisations end up with a 'one size fits all' and inappropriate, or even illegal, software, or very expensive software with enormous ongoing costs.