How One Firm Has Trained Tech Buyers for 50 Years—And Why AI Makes It Urgent Now
ORLANDO, FL – While most procurement teams are still figuring out how to spell “agentic AI,” a quiet Orlando firm just turned 50 doing one thing extremely well: teaching technology buyers how to pay less and keep more control.
ICN (International Computer Negotiations, dobetterdeals.com) was founded in 1975, back when the biggest software deal most companies faced was an IBM mainframe that cost more than a house. Since then, the company claims its alumni have collectively saved more than $3 billion across every tech wave—mainframes, client-server, dot-com, outsourcing, SaaS, cloud, and now the AI gold rush.
“Every 8–10 years the industry invents a new three-letter acronym and convinces buyers they have to pay whatever the vendor asks,” says Evan McEwen, who joined ICN as Chief Revenue Officer in November 2025 after a decade selling SaaS into procurement teams.
“I lived on the vendor side long enough to watch the playbook repeat itself. Same fear, same urgency, same price hikes dressed up as innovation. I switched sides because someone has to teach buyers the counter-moves.”
McEwen points to three patterns that have stayed identical for half a century:
• Vendors create artificial urgency (“sign by quarter-end or lose the discount that never existed”).
• Contracts get longer while audit rights and exit clauses disappear.
• New technology gets sold before anyone can measure ROI.
“AI is just the latest chapter,” McEwen says. “We’re already seeing 40–300% proposed increases on renewals because a vendor slapped ‘AI’ on the invoice. Most procurement teams don’t know how to push back, effectively.”
ICN’s response? The same thing it’s done since 1975—practical, battle-tested workshops—plus a new 2026 slate that includes:
• 20-minute micro-trainings on specific AI contract traps
• Predictive benchmarking powered by 50 years of anonymized deal data
• Private “AI Renewal Bootcamps” for enterprises facing eight-figure increases
The firm isn’t venture-backed, isn’t trying to become the next unicorn, and doesn’t take a dime from software vendors. That independence, says McEwen, is why procurement and legal pros keep coming back.
“Fifty years means we’ve seen every trick,” he says. “It also means we’re still here when the hype dies and the invoices arrive.”
“Buyers have overpaid for long enough,” McEwen says. “If we can help even one team turn a reactive renewal into a proactive negotiation, the next 50 years will take care of themselves.”