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Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

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

#441

Post by prepend »

nwallin wrote: post #377
prepend wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a big fan of sheets, but it is not Excel. Some of the functions are missing after all these years, not to mention charts and pivots. I think Google gave up on trying to compete with excel on features.

The overwhelming majority of people who double click the Excel icon would be equally well served by sheets or localc. It's fine if you're an analyst and are more productive with Excel, but if you're the rest of us, it doesn't matter what spreadsheet app you use. For most of us, a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet and don't need anything more complicated than sum(). In most companies, it's silly to have Office installed by…

You’re right for creating. But many people read spreadsheets that are created by someone who needs those functions. If only 1% of spreadsheets use that function, the entire organization needs it. Training users how to double click icons is surprisingly hard. Trying to train them how to open some spreadsheets in Sheets and some Excel is a support nightmare.

Maybe I could see an argument for localc, but sheets is actually pretty costly at $50-150/year.

I think it’s fine for non-business people to just use the free sheets, but an org would have to not care about excel to use sheets for everyone.

With 365, it’s sort of a no-brainer as while it’s not as good as sheets for accessibility, if I’m going to pay $100/year/user then it’s easier to plan for 365, than sheets, I think.

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

#442

Post by prepend »

swiley wrote: post #428
prepend wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a big fan of sheets, but it is not Excel. Some of the functions are missing after all these years, not to mention charts and pivots. I think Google gave up on trying to compete with excel on features.

Meh, you should probably be using either python or an RDBMS. Most non trivial applications of excel come from a lack of IS knowledge IMO. It’s easy to do but it makes everyone around you less happy.

I disagree as both a python and rdbms user. Excel is great for millions of one off use cases by users who don’t know how to program and don’t know sql and/or have access to rdbms infrastructure. And I think that’s ok.

If I want to create a reproducible data process then I’ll build it in python and maybe some data share or database.

But tons of work can be done in excel that isn’t worth the cost to build in something else.

I don’t include Macros, if I’m programming in Excel, I should probably do that in something that is better designed.

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

#443

Post by theshadowknows »

peteforde wrote: post #393

This article is painfully stupid. I don't mean wrong; it's actually intellectually insulting to the reader. "And we still don’t know where this is going." Spare us. First of all, being able to build an entire company faster and cheaper than ever before by taking advantage of a massive ecosystem of SaaS tools isn't just worth millions, it's the only reason many companies can get off the ground. Second, SaaS tools have…

At my last job we turned a $1M SaaS implementation into over $5M in incremental revenue inside of two years with a team of just 4 people and offloaded an external vendor that was costing an additional $1M/yr. At a company that size (yearly revenue sub $1B) that was a significant return on our investment.

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

#444

Post by peteforde »

theshadowknows wrote: post #443
peteforde wrote: post #393

This article is painfully stupid. I don't mean wrong; it's actually intellectually insulting to the reader. "And we still don’t know where this is going." Spare us. First of all, being able to build an entire company faster and cheaper than ever before by taking advantage of a massive ecosystem of SaaS tools isn't just worth millions, it's the only reason many companies can get off the ground. Second, SaaS tools have…

At my last job we turned a $1M SaaS implementation into over $5M in incremental revenue inside of two years with a team of just 4 people and offloaded an external vendor that was costing an additional $1M/yr. At a company that size (yearly revenue sub $1B) that was a significant return on our investment.

I don't want to be that guy, but since I actually want to understand what you're trying to say: could you proof this and say it differently? It's clear that you think you're making a coherent point, but for those of us not in your head, you aren't differentiating between subjects so it's not clear if you love SaaS, hate SaaS, made 4M, 3M or "sub $1B".

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

#445

Post by peteforde »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #437
peteforde wrote: post #393

This article is painfully stupid. I don't mean wrong; it's actually intellectually insulting to the reader. "And we still don’t know where this is going." Spare us. First of all, being able to build an entire company faster and cheaper than ever before by taking advantage of a massive ecosystem of SaaS tools isn't just worth millions, it's the only reason many companies can get off the ground. Second, SaaS tools have…

> Second, SaaS tools have displaced entire categories of information workers that you no longer need to have in your org chart. Remember DBAs? There's an entire generation of entrepreneurs that do not. This is a very good point, but if you use several of these SaaS, you're paying each one for their information workers. This is the same problem that makes expensive to have many streaming services for your home.

You're entirely missing our point(s).

When I send an SMS with Twilio, they a) aren't going to send me a bill for the cost of employing an engineer for a year and b) are a reliable vendor I can take to my board.

To refute your example, I could send messages via three services and still be ahead because I'm paying for what I use.

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

#446

Post by pas »

the8472 wrote: post #343
pas wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any of them be per employee?

per-user licensing.

Really every user needs a VMware VM and terminal server, and monitoring license? Maybe they do, but they better do something that makes a lot of money to cover the costs.

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

#447

Post by SPBS »

nradov wrote: post #249
phkahler wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, total cost would be a better measure since there is no per-person cost to the SaaS provider. If you have 10,000 employees that's $100M per year in expenses. If you're just renting payroll, purchasing, etc software for that price it'd be far cheaper to roll your own, or pay a few people to work on OSS full time.

Read up on the history Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (C3). The team worked for 7 years and although they achieved some technical goals they never managed to deliver a working payroll system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compens... Payroll is harder than it looks due to all the edge cases. For example, it is literally possible for an employee to have so many payroll deductions incl…

Well, how do existing manual systems deal with it? Why not just make do with partial automation and fall back on the existing methods for those thorny legal edge cases?

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

#448

Post by jcelerier »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #163
jcelerier wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how many 0.0001% of employees does that represent though ? 200k is more than what the average CEO makes (gross) in france (150k€)

Include health insurance, retirement match, employer side payroll taxes, equipment, etc. I don’t make nearly that much but I easily cost my company more than that.

> Include health insurance, retirement match, employer side payroll taxes,

all of these three are included in the gross in france

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

#449

Post by adjkant »

prepend wrote: post #441
nwallin wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overwhelming majority of people who double click the Excel icon would be equally well served by sheets or localc. It's fine if you're an analyst and are more productive with Excel, but if you're the rest of us, it doesn't matter what spreadsheet app you use. For most of us, a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet and don't need anything more complicated than sum(). In most companies, it's silly to have Office installed by…

You’re right for creating. But many people read spreadsheets that are created by someone who needs those functions. If only 1% of spreadsheets use that function, the entire organization needs it. Training users how to double click icons is surprisingly hard. Trying to train them how to open some spreadsheets in Sheets and some Excel is a support nightmare. Maybe I could see an argument for localc, but sheets is actua…

> Maybe I could see an argument for localc, but sheets is actually pretty costly at $50-150/year.

Where are you getting that from? I see Enterprise GSuite at $25 a user (max) and that includes mail and drive. The cost of sheets here is probably $10 or less.

It does seem like the cost is in line, but if you're already paying for Gmail/Drive or other Gsuite things then saving the office 365 cost absolutely helps and Sheets is essentially a no-cost add-on.

https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html https://products.office.com/en-us/compare-all-microsoft-offi...

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

#450

Post by armatav »

jariel wrote: post #222
armatav wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median salary for a software engineer in the US is not $50k... And the productivity increase using certain SaaS tools is not 10%, it can be an order of magnitude in certain instances. https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software-develope... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-salary-... https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/S... https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engin…

This is not about 'software developers' it's about industry at large paying subscriptions for a variety of services. The vast majority of users of SaaS are not software developers.

The parent of the parent comment clearly referenced engineering with his “If you’re already spending >$200k/year per employee then a productivity increase of 10%...”
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