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The Cost of Developers

stratechery.com

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Re: The Cost of Developers

#141

Post by scarface74 »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #136
scarface74 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name some companies making any substantial money selling Windows desktop apps besides Microsoft and Adobe? Again games don't count, they aren't for the most part developing "Windows apps" they are developing apps on top of game engines.

Depends on your definition of "substantial money." There are many, many ecosystems where a Windows desktop app is the ideal platform. I spend my days writing libraries for Windows desktop software and sharing them with many other companies in the same space. Almost by definition, most of the companies in any particular set of domains will not be household names you've heard of. There are really very few consumer soft…

Still no one is giving specific examples.

I spent my first 12 years as a developer doing Windows development,cut my teeth on MFC,ATL, COM/DCOM, VB6 and later on Windows Forms with .Net.

But by mid 2008 the writing was on the wall and I had spent so much time at one company, I found that my skillset wasn't marketable. No one wanted "Windows desktop developers". They wanted web developers. I've spent last 10 years being a boring old corporate Enterprise Developer nowhere near Silicon Valley.

On my list of things that I'm focusing on these days - learning at least one modern front end web framework, learning Node JS (I'm mostly a C# developer now), become more proficient with AWS from the netops/developer/devops perspective (I'm slightly above average now), Docker, etc., Windows desktop development ranks right below learning COBOL.

Looking at the market for front end technology, why would any developer who wants to stay competitive choose to focus on Windows development over Web and mobile.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#142

Post by mercutio2 »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #137
coldcode wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At where I work we use Github Enterprise, which costs way more than Gitlab Enterprise, is not scalable, and barely cares about enterprise customers like ourselves. Gitlab on the other hand is much cheaper, is highly scalable, runs in AWS, and is responsive to requests. Ultimately to make it as a business you need to provide what the customer wants and is willing to pay. Github never did.

We switched from GitHub Enterprise to BitBucket Server several years ago and are pretty (80%) happy with the decision. Saved an absolute truck load of money. The only issue with BitBucket Server is that it (inexplicably) does not have a commit compare view. https://jira.atlassian.com/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/BSER... This is such a massive oversight I have to conclude Atlassian themselves don’t use this product. I…

There are many things I find frustrating about BitBucket Server (it’s super slow, for one, it’s insistence on clobbering commit strings during merges is the biggest), but I’ve never wanted a commit compare view; I don’t even know what that is.

Care to explain what you would use it for?

Re: The Cost of Developers

#143

Post by icedchai »

alter_eco123 wrote: post #98
icedchai wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. I don’t believe most of these businesses are viable long term. But that hasn’t kept me from profiting on the stocks...

Good for you. But you were ostensibly addressing the idea of making it as an independent company - not whether and when revenues and profits might suddenly matter again.

I believe that Github could've done their own IPO at some point. They could've "made it" as an independent company, in that respect, without profits...

Re: The Cost of Developers

#144

Post by Eridrus »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #17
martin_drapeau wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that Windows as a platform is fading away. The Web with SaaS and is taking a lot of that. Even if they keep 90% of the desktop market, revenues are migrating to cloud and apps. MS doesn't want to end up with just an OS running a browser to access other things.

Does MS not actually want it or is it your thinking?

MS definitely doesn't want it. ChromeOS has already won in terms of device administration, because simpler devices are easier to administer, less prone to malware, etc.

If native apps, e.g. Office, really get replaced by web apps, it's going to be all over for Windows as a profit center, and Windows will be hamstrung by it's legacy customers from embracing simpler ideas.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#145

Post by jpindar »

scarface74 wrote: post #113
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the place of myth and legend: outside of SV. I know, it's crazy.

Name some companies making any substantial money selling Windows desktop apps besides Microsoft and Adobe? Again games don't count, they aren't for the most part developing "Windows apps" they are developing apps on top of game engines.

Autodesk, Altium, Mentor Graphics, Cadence, Keysight, National Instruments, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Microchip, CCS, Keil, IAR, NXP, Mikroelektronika, Mitubishi, Xilinx etc.

EDA software, CAD/CAM software, instrument control software, electronic simulation and modeling software, specialized compilers/IDEs, etc. are mostly made for Windows desktops (although more and more of them are also supporting Linux nowadays).

Re: The Cost of Developers

#146

Post by scarface74 »

jpindar wrote: post #145
scarface74 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name some companies making any substantial money selling Windows desktop apps besides Microsoft and Adobe? Again games don't count, they aren't for the most part developing "Windows apps" they are developing apps on top of game engines.

Autodesk, Altium, Mentor Graphics, Cadence, Keysight, National Instruments, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Microchip, CCS, Keil, IAR, NXP, Mikroelektronika, Mitubishi, Xilinx etc. EDA software, CAD/CAM software, instrument control software, electronic simulation and modeling software, specialized compilers/IDEs, etc. are mostly made for Windows desktops (although more and more of them are also supporting Linux no…

And if you combine the revenue of all of those companies, how do they stack up?

To put it into perspective King (maker of Candy Crush) - just one mobile app developer made $2 billion in revenue last year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/288974/king-annual-reven...)

That's about the same as Autodesk (https://www.statista.com/statistics/416235/net-revenue-of-au...).

Having a dominance in a platform (Windows) with a shrinking market is not a winning formula. Why do you think Microsoft is de-emphasizing Windows?

From no less than the CEO of Microsoft.

At our core, Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world. We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#147

Post by simonh »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #128
simonh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The profit margin on most consumer PCs is less than $20. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/09/pc-value-... Look at the 4th chart down. That's a bit out of date, but current figures aren't going to be dramatically better, and look at the trend line.

Yeah, but Chrome OS is also developed by Google - a revenue-seeking company. So you're either missing the point where the margins on the laptops are already including the cost of the OEM OS priced at an even lower price than a personal OEM license, or you're missing the point where the OS being free also includes your annual usage of Google services.

I’m not sure I’m following you. Bottom line is, if a consumer purchasing a laptop doesn’t care about Windows apps, two very similar laptops one running Windows and the other $20 cheaper running ChromeOS is not a good situation for Microsoft. No matter what Googoe’s revenue model is.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#148

Post by Veelox »

0xfeba wrote: post #125
jasode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stratechery wrote: "the App Store dramatically lowered the barriers to entry for developers" To which you replied: "Is there any platform with higher barriers to entry than the App Store? [...] , not to mention the $99/year developer fee" His baseline for "lowered barriers" was retail channel distribution .[1] Think of shrinkwrapped packaged software like Quicken on the shelves of CompUSA, OfficeDepot, Costco, and bo…

Interesting. In hindsight, the retail store distribution model of software lasted far longer (and still does) than it ever should have.

I think you are underestimating how much easier high speed internet enabled downloading of software over buying a CD

Re: The Cost of Developers

#149

Post by jchrisa »

myWindoonn wrote: post #127
jasode wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>VCs and their money are the bad guys, because the dynamics of their [the VCs] investment You're repeating the same "outsourcing of blame" to VCs that I was trying to short circuit. VCs as an abstraction are a convenient target but that doesn't mean they are the correct target. The founders of Github such as Chris Wanstrath, Tom Preston-Werner, et al have agency and autonomy . Why are they specifically not included i…

You're super-close. Money is the "bad guy". It might not appear to have agency or autonomy, but that is because humans are not good at perceiving intangible power structures. In other words, why aren't we saying this: >Money is the bad guy, because its presence, uneven distribution, cult of worshipers, fungibility, and inherent ties to social power structures are unhealthy influences on the founders of Github

Beyond money, it's the logic of commoditization that is the bad guy.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#150

Post by dd36 »

icc97 wrote: post #114
dd36 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. There are some easy project management wins for Github. It’s flabbergasting that they’ve ignored them. Issue complexity and time estimates. Burn downs. Github is only part way there, why not get all the way?

Sometimes it's worth it to stick to what you're good at. If Github burnt a ton of cash to try and compete with Jira, ended up making a product that didn't attract enough people over at the same time as ignoring problems that users were already grumbling about, this could have led to them being in a worse state and easier for MS to pick up on the cheap.

If it cost a ton of cash, that would be ridiculous. It is adding some fields and charts. Do you think Zenhub has or had a ton of cash?
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