upgrades and contracts

I have been spending a fair amount of time lately thinking about contracts.  If you are delivering a SaaS solution to the enterprise there are a number of challenges that exist that aren't there when you are delivering a consumer service. That statement seems obvious enough, right?

The essential challenge is around how to provide protection / assurances to normally risk averse organizations (the Fortune 100 set) around upgrades and yet ensure your organization is not stuck supporting old code bases indefinately.

I started writing a post about some of the nuances, but it quickly became too long for even me to remain intersted.

I think ulitimately the best answer to ensure your client base wants to upgrade. This can only be accomplished by continuing to provide the right features, the right enhancements so that clients are excited about upgrading.

Ultimately if you can't make that happen and you are reliant upon a contract clause to force a client to accept the latest version of the code you have a much larger relationship issue. Those issues aren't going to be fixed by any contract clause.