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Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

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Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#221

Post by AstralStorm »

MattGaiser wrote: post #148
dpcan wrote: post #45

I keep running into organizations or industries that don't spend money on tech. They don't put it in the budget, or they choose to continue to use volunteers to accomplish tasks that really should be done with software. I am in situation after situation where I want to create software to make someone's life easier, but I know that in doing so, I won't make any money and it will make my life harder. I wish there was a…

A lot of it really comes down to explaining that labor cost is equally a cash cost compared to spending on software.

For some bigger companies it's not, software being capital expenses and labor being operational expenses. They're taxed and budgeted separately.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#222

Post by zelos »

Kinrany wrote: post #26

This thread seems to suggest that there are heaps of 20$ bills lying all over the world and accessible to any software engineer. That they are not being picked up suggests that there's some other constraint. Either extracting this value is not really worth one's time, or the bottleneck is not the ability to automate things but some other rare skill.

To me it seems that large parts of 'average' office jobs are things that a software developer would automate so they took a tenth of the time. Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V and undo are advanced computing to many people.

But of course, the people doing those jobs aren't going to go out of their way to make 90% of their job redundant.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#223

Post by bryanrasmussen »

_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

In my opinion the civilization in question does not have steam-powered airships unfortunately, but it does have some really overpriced crap.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#224

Post by luckylion »

loosetypes wrote: post #183
anonytrary wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I have kids, I'm gonna play a game with them where we look at random stuff and try to make up how it got there, and then compare that to how it really got there. I bet if you did this consistently with kids during their formative years, it would be a great way to teach them about the world and the economy. My parents just had a huge book room with encyclopedias that I was expected to pick up and read.

How would figure out how it really got there though? That you can, for the most part, peel back layers and trace steps back to an origin is one of my favorite things about code. But for a heterogeneous system of opaque supply chains in the physical world? For any given random stuff, I don’t know that I could make reliable progress in that endeavor.

> For any given random stuff, I don’t know that I could make reliable progress in that endeavor.

I bet you'd get better at it after doing it for a while, and that in itself is a valuable skill.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#225

Post by cosmodisk »

deng wrote: post #156
_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

I'm in Germany and of course everyone here has at least heard of SAP and knows it's huge, but I guess not many people know just how huge. SAP consultancy is a big market here with lots and lots of job openings. I knew a few people who did that, it's usually a very well paid job, but it's well paid because otherwise no one in his right mind would do it. From what I heard, it's incredibly boring while at the same time…

SAP consulting is like some sort of mythical club,where only the chosen ones can join. SAP isn't something one can learn from his bedroom and then go around advising multinationals.You have to somehow get trained on a job where it is used. So the vast majority of SAP consultants pretty much owe to the fact that they lucked into it.It is however, pretty lucrative though.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#226

Post by realityking »

_bxg1 wrote: post #23
ivalm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the same time, I guess you have to be at a company of a certain size for it to be relevant to your life... But that perhaps proves the point - HN is very starup focused That’s pretty dismissive. I work at a company with ~80B in revenue, I never interacted or heard of SAP in work context. In fact it is only incidentally that I’ve heard of them previously. There are hundred of thousands of engineers working in com…

And was that a FAAMNG? Presumably the larger, "new-wave" tech companies roll their own solutions of some kind

While Microsoft does sell their own SAP competitor they actually use SAP for their main accounting.

https://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2012/11/why-does-microsoft-h...

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#227

Post by Hir0ki »

jimnotgym wrote: post #175
cambalache wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want your mind to be blown even more? I worked for a multinational company, I would not be surpised that this company is among the top 10 SAP customers worldwide. Well, everybody hated hated hated SAP, it was a huge hindrance instead of any help.Any use beyond of a "dumb" database was a huge PITA, and I am not fully convinced that all in all it helped more than damaged the business. It was clunky, unintutive, slow, u…

I worked at an $8bn multinational and we ran the whole operation through SAP from quote to cash... and we really liked it. It was consistent, and the 'ugly' green-screen style data entry is wonderfully efficient. I hear this all the time though, about all ERPs. It is all about how you use them.

Same experience here I work as a SAP Developer at a €14bn multinational.

I had to work in the store for a month and got good feed back from the workers there.

We try the smooth the user experience with web apps for tasks that are done often so it's not to confusing.

But the impotent data entry task like order entry and so on are done the old interface because it's more efficient.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#228

Post by ci5er »

_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

I've got a - maybe silly - question: Do you think that software engineers read about the business of technology?

I mean, some of these behemoths (or used-to-be behemoths) of technology, like Oracle and Intel and Microsoft (Ok - everyone knows them) and Dell and Apple (mostly the 2nd one) and places like SAP (which is arguably the biggest database and logistics and supply chain (sans the EDI middle-ware vendors on the planet) and Synnix (which is arguably the largest ODM supplier of white label servers to the largest data centers in the world), and, well, Wistron? BBG? (Submarine - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/submarine-cables/) Satellites? Aerospace? What it takes to wire our world together?

This is not a criticism - it is simply curiousity - as a tech person - you don't read up on (or do you think people do or do not read up on?) the way the world works technologically?

My son graduated with an engineering degree recently and his friends always want me to take them to lunch (free food!), but also so I can tell them how the world is connected (power, telecom, SDN, Satellites (launch - cradle-to-grave), and I'm always a little amazed because I grew up libraries of books and they've got google, but want to be lectured?

I guess I don't understand. If you have a moment, could you edumacate me?

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#229

Post by erikbye »

auggierose wrote: post #199
arkadiytehgraet wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you have worked as an accountant? Or at least took some intro courses in the area? Or at a bare minimum took a look at common corporate financial statements? This is such a typical dismissive reaction by a person who has ZERO insights into the domain. If it is so trivial, why don't you do it and disrupt the market? Some very trivial millions are waiting for you to just come and get them, what's holding yo…

I don't do it because I care more about my time these days than about making millions :-) And why would I want to do something that is so obviously boring?

Ostensibly you’d rather spend your time on HN than making millions.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#230

Post by spottybanana »

_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

You really have to be living in an alternate universe if you haven't heard about SAP. To me it feels like every other job involves some work with it.
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