On 4/22/2011 5:11 AM, John Weller wrote: > I think the partner's suggestions are good ones. They are certainly what I > would want if I had bought a half-share of a business which was as dependent > on a piece of software as his appears to be. I was a one man band until I > retired and was very concerned about what would happen to my clients if I > were to have a bad car accident or a heart attack and was unable to support > them. If the written agreement was couched in suitable terms you could > still retain 100% control over the software. > > It is common practice to provide an application for a down payment plus a > licence fee at annual intervals for which the client gets a certain level of > support and any upgrades for free. I would drop the notion of it being a > beta product and deliver a version containing all of the working parts as > version 1.0 (say) for a nominal sum. There would be a licence fee, paid > monthly, which would expire at a specified date, usually 1 year from initial > installation. You could have a routine which requires a new key to be > applied after a year perhaps. You would then use the monthly licence > payment to fund any support for the application with the surplus used to > fund development. > > Obviously you would want to market this application so include in the > agreement the facility to use the business as a reference site to > demonstrate the application. As an incentive you could offer them a portion > of the first year's licence fee for any new client they brought in. > > HTH
Ditto what John said. You can charge them a usage/license fee and retain 100% ownership. Offer to put the source code in escrow but be clear about the terms. Get the right legal wording for that. Look into g2data.com for escrow. I don't use an escrow yet but would consider them if I did. Customer pays 100% of the escrow cost...not you. Get some $$$ for your efforts now. You'll be good! Sell the idea that they are getting a great deal and it's a mutually beneficial agreement. As much of a toolbag as the new partner is, you'll have to lose that because it will only hurt you. -- Mike Babcock, MCP MB Software Solutions, LLC President, Chief Software Architect http://mbsoftwaresolutions.com http://fabmate.com http://twitter.com/mbabcock16 _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
