New Blogger Introduction

I'm Bill Boncosky and I joined Alerding Castor Hewitt, LLP January 1st.  I'm thrilled to be here and excited to work with a group of talented and driven attorneys who are passionate about their clients and their clients' businesses.

I spent the last 6+ years as the General Counsel at ExactTarget, an Indianapolis-based email service provider (ESP) delivering its software product as a subscription-based service via a software as a service (SaaS) model.  At ExactTarget, I became personally familiar with and convinced of the power of the SaaS as both a method of delivering software to clients and a business model.

As the GC, I gained first-hand knowledge of legal issues specific to the SaaS model including SaaS litigation, licensing, intellectual property rights, limiting risk via a sound customer subscription agreement, appropriate insurance coverage, and a host of other issues.  I am very excited to be able to share this knowledge with other SaaS companies and provide SaaS legal consulting with my colleagues here at Alerding Castor Hewitt.

SaaS Licensing Payment Terms

Monday, April 19, 2010 by William Boncosky
We all know the beauty of the SaaS business model: great cash flow from up front payments, recurring revenue from clients that renew, ratable revenue recognition that results in smooth rather than lumpy revenue models, etc.  But what if during your licensing agreement negotiations the client is pushing back and threatens some or all of these SaaS model advantages?

This is when its great to work with attorneys that have extensive SaaS legal consulting backgrounds; attorneys that not only...Read More »

Your SaaS Customer License / Subscription / EULA

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 by William Boncosky
For SaaS companies, the customer agreement is critical.  Why?  A SaaS relationship is not a 1-time purchase of software to be installed.  The SaaS customer agreement is a document which will govern (what you hope will be) a long-term relationship with your client.  It must cover the software license aspect of the relationship, the ongoing maintenance, upgrading and use of the software and - often overlooked - the professional services to be provided by the SaaS company to the client.  The...Read More »