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

ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

blog.zenefits.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 96 posts

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#21

Post by Lawtonfogle »

gamblor956 wrote: post #15
wvenable wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually works a bit differently; it's not all scraping. People enter data into Zenefits and then it populates that data into ADP. I don't think the issue is as cut and dried as the typical web scraping situation and I wonder how HN readers feel about this kind of thing. The data belongs to the client. The client chooses to use both services. Should it matter how the client accesses their own information from the…

Generally, from an ethical perspective, it matters at the point when you choose to build a business on the method of accessing a 3rd party service. From a legal perspective, the profit-making purpose is irrelevant. Improper access matters when you start using the service.

>it matters at the point when you choose to build a business on the method of accessing a 3rd party service.

Why? They are having to pay them and then buy your services for data entry. This is no more unethical than hiring someone to do your banking for you.

Violating an EULA by doing this may be unethical, but in that case, it is violating the EULA that is unethical, not the general practice of providing a new interface.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#22

Post by noir-york »

I believe that this is called a 'free market'. Also, called 'underestimating your competition'.

This common misconception that big companies are hide-bound dinosaurs is dangerous for any start up to hold. Most large companies are indeed oblivious, but some elephants - if you tweak them hard enough - turn around and stomp you.

Always respect your competition. Some of them may be smarter than you think.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#23

Post by wdewind »

ohitsdom wrote: post #8

This is getting ugly. Going against a ruthless goliath should help garner public support, but the way they are doing it is very unattractive to me. And as someone currently evaluating payroll solutions for small businesses, I'll be steering clear of them.

Full disclosure I work here so I am biased, but check out Justworks http://www.justworks.com. We offer payroll, benefits (health, commuter, 401k and more), compliance (tax filing, workers comp, epli) etc., all from one company so you don't need to worry about integrations or whom to contact if you have problems.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#24

Post by Dylan16807 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #9

Blatant FUD from Zenefits. ADP's new product is an online payroll/HR SaaS that integrates across its entire product line. Zenefit's product is a glorified remote bookkeeping service in which you enter data into the Zenefits website and they re-enter it manually, and usually incorrectly, into the ADP website and scrape the results, usually incorrectly, so they can post a response several days later to your Zenefits ac…

It's not FUD to quote the email in context.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#26

Post by eropple »

ohitsdom wrote: post #13
cddotdotslash wrote: post #4

I admittedly don't know a lot about this situation beyond what I've read in the news the past day or so. However, isn't it the case that Zenefits is simply building an interface on top of ADP's payroll data? And, from what I've read, it seems like they did this without following the proper procedures (did they write some kind of web scraper?). So if that is the case, ADP has every right to block them. If the situatio…

Zenefits has their users create an admin ADP user. Then zenefits uses those credentials to pull whatever data they want. They chose this route instead of working with ADP's third party system (without giving any justification as to why). I might sympathize if ADP's API access was severely limited or extremely expensive, but it appears as if Zenefits made no efforts to go this route.

From having been there, ADP is a tin-plated nightmare to work with for third-party API access. I'd do the exact same thing in Zenefits' shoes; ADP knows that they are eternally your competitors and will screw you at the first opportunity.

Of course, ADP doing that is not doing right by their customers, but who cares, they're just cash cows.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#28

Post by pyre »

cddotdotslash wrote: post #19
ohitsdom wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zenefits has their users create an admin ADP user. Then zenefits uses those credentials to pull whatever data they want. They chose this route instead of working with ADP's third party system (without giving any justification as to why). I might sympathize if ADP's API access was severely limited or extremely expensive, but it appears as if Zenefits made no efforts to go this route.

Exactly. If I found a third-party company that was having users create accounts on my systems for the purposes of pulling data out, I would block it too, probably more quickly than ADP did. Imagine if a company asked for your Google password instead of using the proper API channels. I don't know many users who would do that.

> Imagine if a company asked for your Google password instead of using the proper API channels

This would be more like creating a new Google Apps email account for someone, and allowing them to use it to (e.g.) manage things on your Google Drive (by sharing a group folder with them).

How many companies hire a 3rd party accounting / HR firm (or person) to manage their bookkeeping? How many of them create an ADP admin account for these people so that they can manage payroll? How is this that much different than Zenefits?

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#29

Post by paulhauggis »

"We call on ADP to stop making life more difficult for small business customers and live up to its corporate value: “integrity is everything.”"

See: Twitter, Facebook, and even Google. All of these companies have destroyed 3rd party companies by basically using them as a test base for new ideas and features and then directly competing (and many times, cutting off the 3rd party completely).

If you are going to base your entire company off of a 3rd party, you better have a plan B if they completely cut you off.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#30

Post by Dylan16807 »

nerdy wrote: post #16
gamblor956 wrote: post #9

Blatant FUD from Zenefits. ADP's new product is an online payroll/HR SaaS that integrates across its entire product line. Zenefit's product is a glorified remote bookkeeping service in which you enter data into the Zenefits website and they re-enter it manually, and usually incorrectly, into the ADP website and scrape the results, usually incorrectly, so they can post a response several days later to your Zenefits ac…

I don't understand the product or companies well, however what you explain is exactly how I felt after reading their post. This kind of thing doesn't even need to be public, let alone posted on the company blog. Calling ADP out about their "corporate value" at the end was unadulterated mud slinging. It's understandable that they're upset but they should work to keep these problems from spreading outside of their lega…

>they should work to keep these problems from spreading outside of their legal team

When they've already been cut off, it's a bit too late for that.

I don't mind if part of the company spends a couple days focusing on this. They need to figure out a plan for the customers that got cut off, too.

It doesn't sound to me like they've "completely taken their eye off the ball". What are you basing that on?

Post reply on HN