Reply to post: I can't really understand why people are surprised

I can't really understand why people are surprised

the customer buys all the kit at the beginning of the contract.

They are gouged for the duration of the contract term.

There are not explicit contract provisions to keep anything maintained. There is no incentive for provider to maintain proactively. Indeed provider can't use centrally managed resources as you can't bill for all the new and shiny stuff for all the new prospect customers.

Hence wall of silence from internal management as there are only incentives to hide the problem and carry on while customer is too disconnected from the actual solution to realise they should ask...

This is normal, culturally embedded in both customer senior management (being blind to what happens 5 years after signing up) and to the outsourcers senior management only wanting to rake in margins for a job they have no intention of doing.