Lean is not just about eliminating waste. It's also about software. A Forrester survey showed that 92 percent think that enterprise software has an excessive cost of ownership. Lean software, or software as a service, such as Google Apps, open source or free software, and other, lighter-weight tools can be deployed at much lower cost, both in licensing and internal resource usage. Like Goldilocks, we need to start buying what's just right: not too much or too little, in spite of all those licenses that the vendor wants to unload at a discount before quarter-end.
