The consulting industry is fiercely competitive and nets between $130B and $150B a year. In fact, professional consultants earn more money than many lawyers, doctors and other professionals. 

Offering free consultations is a common way for a software consultant to seize new accounts. But is there a red flag where a consultant may be giving away too many services for free? The worst scenario for a professional software consultant is to offer free services to the client and then never hear from them again once they no longer need their help. 

Although having the best intentions, many people will waste a consultant's time (i.e., client ignores or rejects any suggested approaches or solutions given by the consultant and seek the services of someone who will do it cheaper or will attempt to do it themselves). Small business owners especially can be challenging to work with. Some clients have a tendency to jump into projects before having adequate resources to finish what they have started, decide to go in a different direction midstream, while others simply don't want to spend any money when getting professional services. It's hard to believe, but some clients actually expect to receive free services for life. To counteract this notion, a software consultant can draw the line by offering free services within a promotional time frame and then begin charging a fee for services rendered after that time.

A good indicator of what a client's true intentions are is to monitor their activity within a specified period to see if their consultation activity bears fruit in the form of a contract. One big red flag is non-commitment on the part of the client. If they seem indecisive or vague about what they want it may be time to move on. Although there are times when a free consultation results in a paying client years later, who can wait that long? 

Less of Your Time is Wasted When You're Upfront

After being burned, some professional software consultants no longer give free consulting. They find that clients are much more willing to follow their advice when they have paid something. In order to close an account, a happy medium can be agreed upon by both parties involved as a way to build a long term relationship with highly qualified prospects. 

A software consultant's work, knowledge, skills and time are valuable. They can offer a potential client general solutions instead of addressing specific challenges. If a specific topic of discussion, troubleshooting session or other issue needs to be addressed, the consultant can inform the client of any upfront costs to receive a particular service if they need further assistance. Really, a free software consultation (if one is given) should be presented in a very similar way someone would hand out samples of a product at a grocery store. A professional consultant ideally wants clients to see how they can benefit using their services on a trial basis with a pitch leading to more extensive services which would only be available if they sign a contract with their firm. 

 Red Flags

HP is taking legal action against Oracle for allegedly breaching its 2010 partnership agreement of porting HP’s core software products with the latest versions of Itanium. In March, Oracle announced it would not be developing any new versions for products designed for the Itanium processor. Itanium has the ability to power the so-called Business Critical Systems hardware for extremely demanding enterprise applications. However, Oracle said the chip line is about to die.

The companies’ lawyer met in the Santa Clara County Superior Court with Judge James Kleinberg presiding to discuss their side of the event. Others in the courtroom included Ann Livermore, HP board member and former enterprise business chief, and Oracle’s co-President Safra Catz. Catz and Livermore were the two key negotiators for the agreement. Livermore was to testify later in the day. Kleinberg is set to rule if the companies had a legally binding contract.

Jeff Thomas, HP’s lawyer, focused on the so-called Hurd Agreement wording, where the companies reiterated their partnership after Oracle hired Mark Hurd, former CEO for HP. HP also sued Hurd for breaking the confidentiality agreement.

Thomas and the lead lawyer for Oracle focused on one paragraph of the agreement, which read Oracle would continue to provide its product suite on the HP platform in a way that’s consistent with the existing partnership before Hurd’s hiring.

Data has always been important to business. While it wasn't long ago that businesses kept minimal information on people who bought their products, nowadays companies keep vast amounts of data. In the late 20th century, marketers began to take demographics seriously. It was hard to keep track of so much information without the help of computers.

Only large companies in the '60s and '70s could afford the research necessary to deliver real marketing insight. The marketers of yesteryear relied upon focus groups and expensive experiments to gauge consumer behavior in a controlled environment. Today even the smallest of companies can have access to a rich array of real-world data about their consumers' behavior and their consumers. The amount of data that is stored today dwarfs the data of only a few years ago by several orders of magnitude.

So what kind of information are businesses storing for marketing purposes? Some examples include:

- Demographic information — age, gender, ethnicity, education, occupation and various other individual characteristics.

Evolving technologies become fun due to the immense advantages and features they bring with them. Fighting change though is human and while we may initially resist such changes, it is always better to accept them to our advantage.

Switching to HTML 5 is one such change we need to be ready for and there are at least 8 reasons why we should be doing so which are explained later in the article.

Earlier HTML was mainly used only for Web content development. But with the arrival of HTML 5, there would be a radical shift in that it would be used more and more for the development of many of the client side applications as well. The advantages straight away are that CSS as well as JavaScript become free due to the open architecture environment. HTML 5 is also pretty light and has a much easier code to read, making it convenient for devices like smart phones and tablets running on batteries to use the applications.

The 8 reasons mentioned above are as under: