The Last Renewal Cycle

There was once a prominent provider of enterprise software that was down to its last customer. That was the bad news.

The good news was the client was the Cosmos and the customer contact was the Deity, and the last remaining enterprise account executive had done his homework and determined that the Deity had BANF (budget, authority, need and funding).

As it turns out, the Cosmos was not in compliance. While the Deity had executed the largest enterprise license agreement in history on behalf of the Cosmos, He had lately begun to outsource the Cosmos's hardware infrastructure and and His Managed Service Providers were virtualizing servers, even shifting applications to the public Cloud, and not surprisingly, they were not keeping proper track of shelf ware.

As the AE wished to minimize any disruption of the back office operations of the Cosmos, the AE set out to make an appointment with God.

He called the Deity and left a voicemail, but the Deity did not return. So the AE sent an email that began, “Per my voicemail.” It went to the Deity’s spam filter, naturally, but email automation ensured that a timely follow-up cadence was executed. One email read, “I know you’re busy. Perhaps you didn’t see my last email or you just haven’t had time to respond.”

Finally, the AE had to take action, so he resolved to call the Deity every hour of every day until He just had to pick up.

The problem is, the AE ran into blockers. There was Corporate Culture, Organization Hierarchy, Hierarchy of Need, Belief System, Conceptual Framework, Ideation Itself and a veritable legion of others. 

But then one day the AE got lucky. He had downloaded some software that enabled his VOIP to spoof a local Gethsemane Gardens number, and when he called right before sundown one Friday, the Deity actually picked up.

“I want to help you,” the AE began.

“That is what they all say,” He replied.

“As I'm sure you are aware, you are out of compliance,” the AE said.

“I am compliance,” He replied, “It comes with the Omniscience piece.”

“Omniscience?” the AE asked, a little quieter now.

The Deity said, “Yes, remember, Al Gore and I invented the Internet back when we both had DARPA gigs. I have now high-speed internet access — the highest, no throttle — and I’ve got access to all the information in the world.”

“Yeah, but . . . “

“Not only that, but I have access to an unlimited number of offshore hourlies, who, at my command, can take out your SAM tools and true-up my usage in a heartbeat. Let there be compli . . .”

“Wait,” the AE interrupted. Now he had to think fast. “Look, I get it. Internal versus external access, novel legal entities: in an expanding universe, it’s a pain to keep track of licenses. So what if I just lift and shift you to the Cloud?”

The deity started to laugh, long, loud and hard. “The only Cloud you can shift me to is the one that is fogging up your eyes.”

“No, no, we’re a leader in the Cloud. You saw the last earnings report: Q over Q growth . . .”

“Silence!” He commanded. “I told you, I have the Internet. In fact, I am the Internet, and you don’t even play in the Cloud.”

“Ok, ok. But our software still runs best on our hardware,” the AE countered. “Tell you what. Take care of your overage, and I'll sell you our bare metal servers at cost—all you can eat—and I’ll even drop ship them to your MSPs."

“Bare metal?” the Deity asked, incredulously. “I prefer speed metal.” At that point. He turned His music way up.

The AE was beginning to feel desperate. “Look, if you and I don’t come to some kind of agreement, you are going to be audited, and I can’t vouch for what will happen then. You may find yourself cut-off from updates, service packs, and what’s worse, I won’t be able to guarantee your uptime. What if the universe came to a grinding halt because you were too proud to address your license entitlements?"

“What if?” the Deity mused. “What if?” Then He got silent as only He can. It was scary. “Go ahead,” He said, “Cut me off.”

“What?” the AE asked. Nothing happened.

“I said, 'Go ahead and cut me off.’”

Still nothing happened.

“You won't cut me off because you can’t,” God said. “Besides, I’ve already migrated to AWS and SimpleDB”

Evening came and the morning came—that was the first day.

About a month later He received a service deprecation notice by email.