Trying this out: SaaS is rent-seeking. The next downturn, tons of these businesses (disproportionately) will be demolished.
Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
321–330 of 453 posts
Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
We wanted to build our own payroll system, but engineering is too busy milking the cows to restock the fridge to learn the tax code for multiple countries.
Has anyone thought about asking engineering to implement or build an interface for someone else (business side?) to manage country level differences in taxes?
I would be interested in engineering something like this, my email is in my profile if you want to share more.
Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just an interesting idea, if no one wants to have employees (lets face it, they are a mess, they waste oxygen, they fart, producing CO2, are corona virus friendly, produce road accidents... and you need to pay them so they can live) maybe everyone is having wrong bussiness plan. Whole world should transform to produce only SAAS products for SAAS people as they are the only customers who will in long term still have m…
I like your first sentence, but unsarcastically. Companies should always strive to do more with fewer employees by automating them away. As for the rest of your argument, most people are not like you, as they will not want to spend time setting up their own mail server. For companies this is doubly true, as they will likely spend more money setting it up, maintaining it, and upgrading it, than the subscription actual…
> Companies should always strive to do more with fewer employees by automating them away.
I wonder if those same companies intend to socialize the wealth generated by their automation.
Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#324Look, either it's worth it or it's not. Costs may be soaring, but companies wouldn't be buying them if they weren't providing more value than they cost. But: > enterprise companies are spending an average of more than $10,000 per employee per year on software Sorry but I can't wrap my head around this. Is that really accurate? Between Office and cloud and HR/payroll and a few other tools I can imagine $1,000 /year. A…
That number doesn't surprise me. Your quick $1000-$2000 estimate is probably accurate for a typical office worker, but the more specialized positions skew the average. I work in mechanical/aerospace engineering for a large company. A lot of the software we use is very specialized and very costly. Here's the yearly costs from the top 4 softwares I use based on a quick google search: 1) $35,000 2) $15,000 3) $10,000 4)…
But there would have to be 5 other workers for every you. I think it’s more likely that the number is around 1 in 200 for most enterprises. And maybe closer to 1 in 1000 for all enterprises combined.
Note: those numbers are pulled out of my ass.
Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#325You know what costs way more than SaaS? Hiring, managing, and losing people. Leveraging high-quality people with tooling, both for individual functions and for company-wide process, is a no-brainer.
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Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Because most business in the United States is done despite the management, not because of it.
Had to double check if I was on HN or on ca. 1999 Slashdot...
Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but companies wouldn't be buying them if they weren't providing more value than they cost Companies do stupid shit all the time. It only takes one person with authority to spend money to sign up for a service. Personally I've seen many software subscriptions that are complete garbage.
“We’ve seen companies buy the same subscription over and over again—even within the same department,” he added. I think that's telling
It’s not so surprising, if the owners of the original subscription prevent access to new people because ‘their costs will rise’.
I’m planning to request a new subscription for exactly that reason.
Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like your first sentence, but unsarcastically. Companies should always strive to do more with fewer employees by automating them away. As for the rest of your argument, most people are not like you, as they will not want to spend time setting up their own mail server. For companies this is doubly true, as they will likely spend more money setting it up, maintaining it, and upgrading it, than the subscription actual…
> Companies should always strive to do more with fewer employees by automating them away. I wonder if those same companies intend to socialize the wealth generated by their automation.
I think we've reached peak Hacker News. This is now looking like Slashdot.
Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#329Look, either it's worth it or it's not. Costs may be soaring, but companies wouldn't be buying them if they weren't providing more value than they cost. But: > enterprise companies are spending an average of more than $10,000 per employee per year on software Sorry but I can't wrap my head around this. Is that really accurate? Between Office and cloud and HR/payroll and a few other tools I can imagine $1,000 /year. A…
Qualtrics, a company I have worked for in the past, specializes in selling huge experience management packages to global enterprises. Deal size ranges anywhere from $10k to $1mil+ (yearly). Then there's SAP which is something like $3k per user per year. These things can seriously add up.
SAP might be worth it, but my first experience with it has been absolutely awful.
Some buttons are hidden behind 3 layers of scrollbars because they’ve put panes inside of panes inside of panes. It’s ridiculous...
Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, those numbers seem very suspicious. Cherry-picked maybe. Fifty dollars a month is a decently pricey subscription (like a lot more than Slack, JIRA, Lucidchart, Office, etc.), and you have twenty of those for every employee?
I've used specialized embedded system tools that cost $10,000/year per seat for tooling. Our QNX licenses were about $5,000 or $10,000/year alone. That's just to be able to run a piece of software. Autodesk tooling is $20 to 30k a year. Some of the more specialized tools cost six-figures. So I guess if you're just doing some basic web development those numbers are suspect. But if you do hardware or embedded software…
I agree, but how much employees at an enterprise have the software?
Like 5%.