A colleague alerted me to a company, Infor, that seems to have a business model of buying up destitute software vendors, auditing the heck out of unsuspecting licensees, and then charging them full-gut retail (plus some) for non-compliance.  It's very similar to the popular "patent troll" model.

I have to give this company kudos for coming up with a new business model to extract revenue from their "valued" customers.  Infor has gone so far as to dedicate a part of their website to educate customers on their "Compliance Assurance Program."  In fact, they have an entire FAQ that explains, among other things, that their audit software usually runs as long as 6-weeks on your systems.  How cool is that!?  Check out their FAQ here for more fun facts.

Another page on their website describes their "License Management Policy," where they may charge non-compliant customers 100% of list price + retroactive interest.  Now that's some sweet margin!  Click here to check out their awesome License Management Policy.

Hey, we all need to be in compliance, but IT assets can be difficult to manage, so mistakes can be made.  It's only reasonable for us to pay our fair share, so what's wrong with paying 100% of the list price (plus interest)?

Here's the only bummer about this—Infor is a private company and I can't buy their stock.  I sure would like to get a piece of that action.  The Infor business model sure bets the heck out of those other software companies that make their money the old-fashioned way (by providing value to their customers).