Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

ibj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 453 posts

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#131

Post by Smaug123 »

jchw wrote: post #113
optimiz3 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has Valve done anything noteworthy in the last 10 years besides milking the Steam store? Their half-baked console seemed like an attempt to do more of the former.

I know you are trying to be snarky but Valve has accomplished a hell of a lot more than most startups ever will. They are far from perfect (hell, they’re known for bugs and their famously poor timelines, and I heard their game Artifact was not good,) but it’s pretty bizarre to suggest they do nothing. Maintaining Steam alone is huge. It’s hard to find a platform with more vigorous fanboys for good reason. But that al…

Fascinating article by Zvi (a very accomplished Magic: the Gathering player) about Artifact. https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/10/08/artifact-what-went-w...

Summary: the game was brilliant ("uniquely amazing") if you were really good at it but was essentially impossible to get into, and its economy was badly constructed.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#132

Post by ChuckMcM »

This from the article: According to a recent analysis of more than 30 million transactions, Zylo—a local firm that helps its customers track and manage software subscriptions—found enterprise companies are spending an average of more than $10,000 per employee per year on software. So, for every 100 employees, companies are spending $1 million on software subscriptions.

So what would an IT department, physical plant, and software purchase prices cost? This is an area where data scientists have had a big impact, pricing models. Between keeping the cost "just under" the similar cost to do it yourself, and adding the value of "you can double or halve your size without any additional HR costs", the SaaS model gets an enterprise to be closer to being precisely sized.

Think about how this worked in the past, you over provisioned infrastructure based on projected growth, you sold off at a loss infrastructure you no longer used, your business expense didn't track your actual size and always cost more. So in that model SaaS wins pretty handily.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#134

Post by riazrizvi »

> Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions

Seems like an odd complaint. If you spend $1 on SaaS for some service you need, you are likely saving $10 on the cost it would take to build it for yourself. Surely the money you spend on SaaS is as much a measure of productive economy, provided of course you use it.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#135

Post by paxys »

Balvarez wrote: post #61

It seems to me companies should instead invest in open source alternatives. They could pay less, funding the development of open source alternatives and everyone wins. Blender is a good example of this.

Just doing the math, telling your engineers to spend $10 worth of their time every month contributing to an open source alternative is worthless. Building something reasonable is going to be a lot more expensive than what they currently spend on the software.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#136

Post by thrownaway954 »

personally i see the reason for this is because almost all software today is subscription based rather than a flat fee based. I know no software today that you pay a one time fee for. everything is pay a monthly or yearly fee. the good news is that cause of this, software is now kept up to date and new features are added.

also, because of this, it is really hard to pirate software now. so gone are the days when everyone in a 100 person company was running the same license for photoshop. unfortunately, managers don't take that into account, because they were either ignorant about it or turning a blind eye to save the company money.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#137

Post by jrs235 »

taleodor wrote: post #21
paxys wrote: post #8

If you are already spending >$200K per employee, spending another $10K to make them even 10% more productive is a bargain.

Exactly this. Unfortunately, way too often I see execs saying "that's too expensive, we just have to do it manually" instead of using good tool. Then what happens is somebody making $100+/hour would spend several hours to do the job that would be covered by a tool that costs under $50/month.

It's easy to say "yes" and difficult to say "no". Becoming a financial steward comes by first saying "no" and only saying "yes" when the ROI worksheet is filled out, completed, and approved. If you want your manager to approve spending some money on tools you can help them by filling out your own preliminary ROI worksheet to show them why you think it's a no-brainer.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#138

Post by jandrese »

riazrizvi wrote: post #134

> Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions Seems like an odd complaint. If you spend $1 on SaaS for some service you need, you are likely saving $10 on the cost it would take to build it for yourself. Surely the money you spend on SaaS is as much a measure of productive economy, provided of course you use it.

Assuming the Saas is sensibly priced, which may or may not be true in the enterprise realm. Or may have been when you first adopted the service, but may not be currently.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#139

Post by acdha »

genghisjahn wrote: post #93
papito wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most business in the United States is done despite the management, not because of it.

Where’s the list of awesome companies that succeed without managers?

“without” is the wrong word: you need managers but they need to have incentives which align with the actual business and accountability. Most companies have problems with at least one of the two, which is a loss but usually indirect enough that it's easy to excuse or deflect.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#140

Post by rolltiide »

aidos wrote: post #33
rolltiide wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the solution is to have a SaaS tool which shows what other SaaS tools are being accessed by your organization. Hm how would we make that cost more though if there aren’t that many large organizations

https://track.g2.com/ Here you go

Nice, I'll copy their pricing model given the validation.
Post reply on HN