When Does Third Party Support Make Sense?

The sales pitch by third party support vendors is compelling. The up-front cost savings are enough to make anyone pay attention. But can they deliver?

In some ways, the answer has to be no. They do not have direct access to new updates or the expertise of the engineers that produce them. When you go with third-party support, make sure that you have a way to get needed security and functionality upgrades, and make sure that you have a path forward.

License compliance, and compliance with regulatory and contractual requirements are your responsibility, not the responsibility of the support provider. If you have not worked around those issues, you have more work to do before making the leap to third party support.

Some vendors have fee requirements to re-establish a relationship if you need to upgrade to a new version or pull in the primary vendor's expertise. Make sure you are looking at the total cost picture, not just the pretty up-front cost picture the sales rep is showing you.

Scott Rosenberg suggests some situations that may be ripe for third party support:

• You have a highly customized environment that is several updates behind and may never be able to be updated.
• You are pulling in extra expertise outside of the basic maintenance agreement, for tuning or design support.
• No updates or upgrades are expected to be needed.

If you do go with a third-party vendor, make sure to protect yourself with a well-written contract and guarantees. Understand what the vendor will do, and how they will handle issues that are beyond their expertise. What timelines, deadlines, and service levels are guaranteed by the vendor?

As with any other business decision, make sure you have the facts before you proceed.