It amazes me the number of organizations that sign software agreements that contain terms that are either not clearly defined or are downright ambiguous. It should be no mystery that software publishers create agreements with terms that can lead to multiple interpretations. Ask a complicated licensing question of any major software publisher, and expect to get multiple different responses.
My favorite contract language is “please contact your Account Manager, License Advisor, or Reseller for assistance”. Never is the process clearly outlined, but rather just call us we will take care of it. Why would anyone agree to contract language like this?
Not only should your legal counsel carefully review all contracts but your IT teams who will deploy and manage the technology need to make sure the contract terms support how they expect to use the software.
For all contract language not clearly defined add amendments that provide clear language as to what will happen when a given event occurs. Amendments should include irrefutable examples. Even if you do not think a given scenario will impact you during the contract, better safe than sorry.