What term describes a customer's high dependency on a vendor's products or services, complicating vendor changes?

The term that accurately describes a customer's high dependency on a vendor's products or services is vendor lock-in. This phenomenon occurs when customers become so reliant on a specific vendor's tools, technologies, or services that switching to another vendor becomes extremely difficult, costly, or time-consuming. This dependency can arise from a variety of factors, such as proprietary technology, the complexities of integration with existing systems, or the significant investment made in training and support for the vendor’s products.

When a customer is locked into a vendor, they face challenges in changing or migrating to a competitor's products, which can restrict their flexibility and options in the marketplace and often lead to increased operational costs or suboptimal solutions. Understanding vendor lock-in is crucial for organizations to evaluate their vendor relationships and consider strategies for mitigating risk, such as implementing open standards or seeking providers that facilitate easier transitions.

The other terms presented relate to different aspects of vendor relationships: vendor viability pertains to the stability and reliability of a vendor’s business, source code escrow deals with ensuring access to software source code under specific conditions, and vendor lockout implies being unable to access a vendor’s offerings, which does not capture the essence of the dependency relationship that vendor lock-in does.