Our Suppliers

AvePoint

Data management, governance and backup for Microsoft 365 and Teams

AvePoint is one of the largest independent providers of data management, governance, and backup solutions for the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. The Confidence Platform includes Cloud Backup, Policies & Insights, Opus (records management), and migration tools. For organisations heavily relying on SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive, AvePoint is often the de facto choice because Microsoft itself does not offer a complete native backup. The pricing model works with per-user or per-GB subscriptions, depending on the product. Contracts usually run for 1 or 3 years and are often tied to Microsoft EA renewals. This means procurement often escalates unnoticed alongside the M365 landscape without a clear moment to review the AvePoint strategy.

Tenable

Vulnerability management, Nessus and exposure management for enterprise security

Tenable is the market leader in vulnerability management and exposure management. Its best-known product is Nessus — one of the most widely used vulnerability scanners in the world — along with the enterprise platforms Tenable Vulnerability Management (formerly Tenable.io), Tenable Security Center, and the overarching Tenable One. For organisations with NIS2, DORA, or ISO 27001 obligations, a toolset like Tenable has become almost standard. The licensing model is based on the number of assets (IP addresses, cloud resources, identities). This sounds simple but the counting is notoriously tricky: IoT devices, container instances, and ephemeral cloud workloads can quickly cause the asset count to rise. Organisations that don’t actively manage their asset inventory often see their Tenable bill increase year after year without the security level improving.

Adobe

Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud

Adobe is the market leader in creative software and document management. Most organizations use Adobe through a Creative Cloud subscription—a flexible but expensive model that renews automatically every year. Adobe has implemented significant price increases in recent years, often without active communication to existing customers. For enterprise organizations, named user licenses and shared device licenses are the two main contract types. The distinction is crucial: a named user license is tied to a person, while a shared device license is linked to a device. In practice, these are often used interchangeably, leading to compliance risks and unnecessary costs.

Barracuda

Email security, firewalls, SASE and backup for mid-market and enterprise

Barracuda Networks is a broad security provider offering products for email security (Email Protection), network security (CloudGen Firewall, SecureEdge SASE), application security (WAF-as-a-Service) and data protection (Backup). Barracuda is particularly strong in the mid-market and is sold through a partner model. Since the acquisition by KKR in 2022, the product range has been rapidly shifted towards consolidated subscription suites. The licensing model is mostly per user (email, SASE) or per appliance (firewall, WAF). Over recent years, Barracuda has steadily increased prices and actively promoted multi-year contracts. Customers who fail to renegotiate in time therefore consistently face price increases of 10-20% upon renewal.

Figma

Collaborative design platform for product and UX teams

Figma is the dominant design and prototyping platform for product and UX teams. After the takeover by Adobe (which ultimately did not proceed), Figma remained independent and has significantly increased its enterprise pricing. The tool is popular due to its browser-based collaboration, but the license structure is complex and prices scale quickly as teams grow. Figma works with editor seats (paid) and viewer seats (free or paid depending on the plan). In practice, viewer seats are often converted to editor seats without central control, leading to unexpected invoices.

Zoom

Video conferencing, webinars and business telephony

Zoom has grown from a video conferencing tool into a complete communication platform with telephony, webinars, contact center solutions, and AI functionalities. After the explosive growth during the pandemic, many organizations were left with oversized Zoom contracts that were never reviewed. Zoom operates with a user-based licensing model. Most organizations pay for more hosts than they actually need. Moreover, add-ons such as Zoom Phone and Zoom Webinar are often purchased separately without strategic consideration.

Atlassian

Jira, Confluence, Trello and the rest of the Atlassian ecosystem

Atlassian is the provider behind Jira, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, and a range of other development and collaboration tools. In 2024, Atlassian fully discontinued the Server variant and forced all customers to migrate to Cloud or Data Center. This has led to significant price increases for many organizations still using Server. Atlassian uses a tier-based pricing model: as the number of users grows, you pay per additional tier. This makes budgeting difficult and often leads to unexpected jumps in the invoice when the team grows.

Palo Alto Networks

Next-gen firewall, SASE and cloud security platform

Palo Alto Networks is one of the leading players in enterprise cybersecurity. The portfolio includes next-generation firewalls (NGFW), the Prisma SASE platform, endpoint protection via Cortex XDR, and a wide range of cloud security services. Palo Alto has aggressively acquired companies in recent years and pushed customers towards an integrated platform model. The licensing structure is complex: hardware appliances are combined with software subscriptions and cloud services, each with its own durations and renewal dates. This makes oversight and budgeting difficult without active contract management.

VMware (Broadcom)

Virtualization and cloud infrastructure, now part of Broadcom

VMware, since 2023 part of Broadcom, is the market leader in server virtualization and cloud infrastructure. The acquisition by Broadcom has led to drastic changes in the licensing model: perpetual licenses have been abolished, partner ecosystems have shrunk, and customers are forced to switch to expensive subscription bundles. For many organizations, the transition to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) means a cost increase of 200-600% compared to the old situation. This has led to a massive re-evaluation of the VMware strategy among enterprise customers worldwide.

DocuSign

E-signatures and contract lifecycle management

DocuSign is the market leader in e-signatures and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM). The tool is widely used in legal, HR, and sales processes. DocuSign operates with envelope-based pricing: you pay per sent document for signing. For high volumes, enterprise plans with a fixed fee are more cost-effective. A common issue is that organizations purchase envelope packages based on peak volumes, while average usage is much lower. This leads to structural over-purchasing.

Veeam is the market leader in backup and recovery solutions for virtual, physical, and cloud environments. The software protects workloads on VMware, Hyper-V, AWS, Azure, and more. Veeam offers both perpetual and subscription licenses, making the switch from one contract type to another complex. After the acquisition by Insight Partners and collaboration with Broadcom/VMware, Veeam's licensing structure has changed further. Customers migrating from VMware to an alternative must also review their Veeam licenses.

Miro is the most popular online whiteboard platform for remote and hybrid teams. The platform is especially popular in product, design, and agile environments. Over the past few years, Miro has entered the enterprise market with a more serious offering, but for many organizations it remains a shadow IT tool that grew bottom-up without central license control. The licensing model distinguishes Members (paid) from Viewers (free). Just like with Figma, it’s tempting to add people as Members while Viewer access would suffice for most users.