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Not a new practice, I think. We got screwed out of a commission on a system sale many years ago.

HP was trying to get companies to buy the PA-RISC version of the HP 3000, and offered a 10% commission

on the total sale to any outside software vendor whose product was (a) purchased at the same time,

(b) cost $10,000 or more, and (c) the customer certified it was critical to the purchase.

So, we priced our compiler (the *ONLY* third-party compiler at the time, and still the only

one that compiles "SPL" to PA-RISC (or to C)) at $10,000. We had a software development company

purchase a 3000/930 (?) strictly for developing PA-RISC products, and they needed and bought

our compiler ... and wrote us the certification it was critical.

HP stiffed us.

(We were used to that ... got stiffed by DEC once, too, in a different manner :)