Nearly every company today is a mass consumer of technology. Business would come to a standstill without the installed software products, cloud products and technology-related outsourcing arrangements that companies have come to depend on to manage and run their day-to-day business operations. From desktop computing to data processing to product barcode labeling and everything in between, our companies and our economy are entirely dependent on third-party software and other third-party technology products.
Companies’ use of third-party technology is always governed by a contract. Depending upon the product or service at issue, the contract may be called a license agreement, subscription agreement, hosting agreement or something else entirely. While it is typically the lawyers (in consultation with the procurement group and the business stakeholders) that draft and revise technology contracts, they are ultimately business negotiations that allocate the rights, obligations, risks and liabilities among the parties.
