Types of IT contract
The eight IT contracts (licence, bespoke development, integration, maintenance, outsourcing, hosting, online service, technical assistance), the two pricing modes, fixed price and time and materials, and the risk of unlawful labour lending.
- 31 cards
- 5 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
- Sort and link
- Scenarios
- Understand
A few cards from the deck
Software licence: what is it?
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A contract by which the publisher allows the customer to use software within set limits, without transferring ownership of it.
The customer gets a right of use (number of workstations, duration, scope), not the code: installing on more machines than agreed or sub-licensing falls outside the contract.
A small business wants its publisher to fix the faults reported after go-live, with no new features. Which contract does it sign?
- Corrective maintenance
- Outsourcing of its system
- A software licence
- Bespoke development
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Corrective maintenance
Corrective maintenance only aims at conformity to the specification. New features would fall under evolutive maintenance or a separate development.
With a …, the provider commits to a deliverable for a set price; with …, the customer pays for the time spent.
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With a fixed price, the provider commits to a deliverable for a set price; with time and materials, the customer pays for the time spent.
The choice allocates the risk: with a fixed price it falls on the provider; with time and materials, on the customer.
Online service (SaaS): what is it?
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Software run by the provider on its own servers and used remotely by the customer, most often for a subscription.
Nothing is installed at the customer's: the provider hosts the software and the data, hence the weight of service levels and reversibility.
A developer employed by a services firm has worked at a customer's for three years; the customer gives the orders, sets the hours and approves the leave. How should this be classified?
- Lawful time and materials, since billing is by time spent
- Outsourcing, since the assignment is long
- Unlawful labour lending
- Lawful technical assistance, since the services firm still pays the salary
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Unlawful labour lending
Neither the billing nor the payslip decides the classification: the customer directs the employee, and the provider only supplies labour. Time and materials assumes the provider remains the real employer.