A few years ago I wrote a guide for a client on what the lead negotiators needed to think about when negotiating a contract for a piece of software that was going to be highly strategic to the client's business. This post is largely from that set of guidelines, itself which came from a number of years of me negotiating software contracts. It covers a number of guiding principles that govern the overall negotiation process, some specific preparation work prior to entering into actual negotiations, what to consider when reviewing the license agreement itself, and what to consider when revie