The move to the cloud has been transformative, but negotiating cloud and SaaS contracts presents its own set of challenges.
The legal and business terms presented in cloud contracts are different than in traditional on-premise software licenses.
In a cloud contract, you need to aggressively negotiate substantial discounts off of the list price of the software, you need to cap the vendor’s ability to increase prices in subsequent terms, and you should obligate the vendor to assist you in transitioning your data to a new vendor upon termination.
You have no greater leverage with your vendor to negotiate meaningful concessions than before you commit to a multi-year term.