SAP significantly boosts service costs, angering customers

One of the huge challenges is breaking into the mindset of many decision-makers. And, logic isn't necessarily a factor.

It appears many IT shops get a warm fuzzy out of writing huge checks to companies for software. The primary reason I've seen for this is to have "support", even if "support" is an ill-defined term and the software is beyond lousy.

Why do they care about support? Simple: they are paranoid that some important thing will break and they will be blamed for it. If there's a company they can sue, or otherwise point the finger at, they're overjoyed. I have seen this behavior painfully often, it has nothing to do with actual productivity.

Since it's already proven difficult to convince these groups that free software (even with a support company) is viable, I expect SAP will simply get its free money. Most groups will write a fatter check and move on.

This reminded my of the recent post by Paul Graham, where he mentioned enterprise software companies charging excessive rates for horrible software. Is anyone taking advantage of this to compete against SAP?