The subject of software sales regulation is discussed in this very well written post. I must admit that any idea of regulation usually initiates a violent, negative reaction, since I affiliated (loosely) with a Church of Free Markets. However since I am not a fundamentalist in my beliefs, I can agree that sometimes it does produce positive results and also not always intended ones.

As software does more and more important stuff on our behalf, it is likely that it will face greater regulation. This may be no bad thing, but let’s tread cautiously. Regulations, like technology, often bump into the law of unintended consequences. This can be a good thing in software, as may lead to Accidental Awesomeness. In law though, it tends to hurt folks it was supposed to protect, or protect things that ought to be protected.

I will take on one of Vinnie’s points though:

Require systems integrators to be truthful

This was amplified by Nitin’s comment about outlandish sales claims.

Another one comes to my mind as a honorable mention as well:
- Regulate the advertising or hold vendors accountable for what they claim regarding profitability and efficiency. Vendors claim the moon - I cannot see any other industry where there is so much FUD and bogus claim

This is a fair discussion ONLY if applied to areas of SW technical performance or SaaS functional performance claims in my opinion. However since there is a partnership involved between SW vendor and buyer, which requires a lot of value to be added by the buyer, it is much more difficult to assess whether the sales claims were “puffery” or not. Most of Enterprise software implementation initiatives do not result in expected ROI, but I could hardly blame the software vendors for that. In many cases these initiatives are plagued by poor execution of the buyers or their agents (implementation service providers).

“Management by objectives works if you first think through your objectives. Ninety percent of the time you haven’t”.

Peter Drucker

Disclaimer - I do not sell any software