If you’re considering moving into the cloud, you’ll likely start by do a web search for information. You’ll find thousands of articles on the technology, the terminology, the advantages and the issues. You’ll find very little on what should be in your contract with the provider you eventually choose. There’s two articles in ITWorld which outline the key points that you should consider when signing up for cloud-based services. Not surprisingly, the standard contracts offered by providers benefit the provider. As the customer, you should modify the terms to cover the issues that matter to you.

Some of the issues covered include:

• Termination, opt-out and automatic renewal clauses
• Penalties for non-payment
• Intellectual property rights
• Vendor sharing of your information with third parties
• Auto-renewal

Simply signing the contract as offered by the provider can easily leave you with a far less flexible and favorable contract than you’d get if you took an extra hour to review and negotiate the contract terms first.

The articles are here: How to get out of a contract with your cloud provider and How to negotiate a contract with a cloud or SaaS provider