It seems that maintenance fee just sits out there - untouchable, rising, and not delivering business benefit. As budgets get tight, there must be SOMETHING we can do to affect it somehow. There may be. Here are two things to consider as the budget needs to be scrutinized.
1) Understand what is deployed. Is there un-deployed (or under-deployed) functionality in your larger packages that could be used to displace some of your stand-alone software or remove a home-grown solution you need to maintain. Maintenance software, quality management, contact management, service management, etc. are all places to look where you may be paying maintenance fees, but not yet utilizing the software. If you can get these functions addressed with no or minimal increase to your maintenance fees, your value equation can improve.
2) Know your users. There are methods for tracking exactly who is using what processes and how. Quite often, more users may be licensed than are using the software (we call that shelf-ware) or the types of users may be lighter (and cheaper) than you are licenced for. It may take a little negotiating, but this information can usually lead to a maintenance fee reduction.
There are other items that can be considered, of course, and opportunity on the hardware side as well, but the above is usually a good place to start. If you need a hand going into the next fiscal budget, give us a call.