Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019) • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by chopin » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 8:49 AM UTC

topkai22 wrote: post #373

tialaramex wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the worst things I've seen at an employer was more than one SSO. That's when you know the people paying your wages are truly dysfunctional. Because of course Fiefdom A doesn't want Fiefdom B's SSO to be used by their systems, that gives the person ruling Fiefdom B power - so instead get a separate SSO, what do you mean that's missing the point? If I worked for an SSO provider I think I'd be tempted to exponten…

I’ve mainly seen that situation in post M&A environments, and while fiefdoms are often a part of the problem, untangling auth across multiple enterprise systems is really hard.

But the GP's pricing scheme would put a hard incentive on fixing it.

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

#412

Post by peteforde » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 9:27 AM UTC

Rury wrote: post #407

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…

Not sure I understand you. From your post, it sounds like you have beef with people who complain about SaaS costs, when many SaaS products are arguably cheap, cover valuable functions like DBAs used to, and allows many companies to get off the ground in the first place? All while proponents of SaaS are fundamentally no different than companies like SAP or Hedge funds that are making billions via rent-seeking off open…

It's like this:

SaaS companies generally add extraordinary value to the software that they commercialize, both for the customer and for the software itself.

You are simply mistaken regarding the cost difference between SaaS cost and having to hire an expert in an open source package (I'm simplifying for the conversation). It's not just a question of instance sizing and data transfer, or even how much it costs to pay those humans to provide support. The real cost is in terms of liability and service level. Most corporations quite simply won't take on the risk of using "raw" open source because if something goes wrong, they need someone to blame. The alternative in a real company would be to use the expensive, generic proprietary solution. They are happy to provide an SLA for $$$. Meanwhile, SaaS companies are frequently started by the core developers of open source projects, and the attention and reputation of having a company exist to promote your project tends to create a virtuous cycle of new users, training materials and PRs. It quite literally raises the tide for all boats.

I don't have any beef with the specific act of complaining about prices in general. People are indeed free to not appreciate all sorts of things. However, much like the rise of conscious consumerism, good managers and good companies - the sort of people and places you want to work for when given a choice - increasingly understand that you have to reinvest back into the infrastructure that makes our lifestyle possible.

So yeah, go ahead and install all of the locally hosted solutions you want, and feel as superior as you can, until the moment where you realize that it's utterly irresponsible for key tech talent to spend time in a growth stage startup applying patches to things in the middle of the night. If you don't figure it out, your board of directors will replace you with someone wiser.

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

#413

Post by osel » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:13 AM UTC

davidajackson wrote: post #175

taleodor wrote: post #21

Earlier 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.

Someone should build a webpage that does this: 1. Enter salary of engineer. 2. Enter cost per engineer of product (subscription, one time, etc.). 3. Enter required minutes to make worth your time (setup per employee can be factored in). This may already exist, but if it doesn't it could be a useful tool for Saas companies. Something you could drop into emails to potential customers ("see how much you would save"). Wo…

Seeing as you asked, here is my attempt from an afternoon's work: https://isitworththecost.com/

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

#414

Post by _red » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:17 AM UTC

IggleSniggle wrote: post #354

analog31 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for a typical office worker, based on my experience at a large company, there might be 10 to 20 enterprise apps that include: * Tracking work hours * Communicating within teams * Entering and managing yearly performance reviews * Managing IT tickets * Catching spyware, phishing, etc. * Key and click logging * Personality and other screenings for job candidates * Health insurance management * Jira being used outs…

> * Key and click logging What kind of dystopian Corporate hellscapes have you worked in? This is totally unacceptable. I would not submit myself to that kind of scrutiny or micromanagement, no matter how benign the intentions of it's implementor. Nothing good can come of it.

> I would not submit myself to that kind of scrutiny or micromanagement,

Says the gmail, google, facebook, android user.

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

#415

Post by edpichler » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:20 AM UTC

Do you think this is expensive? Try to build on your own. Seriously, if it's expensive it's because it's not necessary, so the problem is not the SAS cost, but bad administration/management.

Software is like a machine, it's to automate and make you more productive. Why would you buy a machine that makes you lose money?

If you have a management SAS software that costs 100k a year but it makes your company more productive saving you from hiring 3 management people with salary of 90K/year, do you think this software is expensive?

This article is horrible, ignoring a lot of variables.

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

#416

Post by UweSchmidt » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:28 AM UTC

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #397

peteforde wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keylogging is illegal almost everywhere. If you suspect that your current or former employer is monitoring people's keystrokes, please contact the appropriate authorities to start a whistleblower process.

Keylogging of any company provided hardware is probably legal as you have no expectation of privacy.

I do expect privacy, and find the idea of a middle manager or hr person digging through a employee keylogger output file revolting. It's a truly degenerate state of employer-employee relationship if this is even conceivable.

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

#417

Post by regularfry » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 11:04 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #398

regularfry wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other side of that equation, what you would hope is that your $50/month is buying you a subscription to steadily increased functionality over time. That's something your $1000 up-front payment wouldn't get you, and it helps offset the initial on-boarding costs. It's also probably true that once your one employee has gone through the selection, learning, and purchasing process, getting subsequent users on-board…

On the other side of that equation, what you would hope is that your $50/month is buying you a subscription to steadily increased functionality over time. Some people might hope for that. Personally, if I'm buying a tool for professional use, I want to choose my preferred one and then have it be reliable and future-proof. Things like security updates are one thing, but the last thing I want is random changes in funct…

I don't disagree: there's a reason I prefer Debian Stable on my servers. But when done well, and in the right place, it can be a worthwhile avenue. Github is a pretty good example: they've not stood still (ok, they also haven't moved that fast either), but the core of what worked 10 years ago still works today.

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

#418

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 11:11 AM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #368

crazygringo wrote: post #247

Look, 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…

I used to work for a company whose licensing fees were mid-five figures a seat. Granted, not every person in the company needed a license; but nearly everyone involved in the production process did. The company also benefited from vendor lock-in, because skilled workers tend to get pretty attached to their workflows and competitors in niche software tend not to have 1-to-1 feature overlaps. It seems like nearly every…

Software isn't expensive because it's niche.

It's about case and effect: seat costs for specialised tools are high because they can be. People with limited B2B experience underestimate just how much cash large corporates can throw around without even noticing, and how rarely ROI is assessed on this spending.

The development costs required to create a competitor to an industry standard product can be relatively small. (Sometimes they aren't - but they can be.) The real costs are in marketing and sales.

Quicken doesn't do anything outstandingly clever, but good luck trying to sell your new competitor to existing accountants.

Generally there's only a change if the incumbent gets too greedy and complacent, or if the industry changes significantly and a new generation of companies appears with new ideas about which software is "standard."

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

#419

Post by kaetemi » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 11:23 AM UTC

wglb wrote: post #210

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, if you roll your own crypto payroll, the risk of one project perfectly offsets that of the other. It's a perfect hedge.

Ah, but what if they add rather than cancel?

Two negatives make a positive, right?

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

#420

Post by hef19898 » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 11:31 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #247

Look, 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…

Well, it depends. Only considering Saas, i have a hard time to imagine that as well. If include highly specialized stuff, Catia and so on, SAP etcc.., and devide that by total number of users (not employees) the picture changes.

I am currently at roughly 40 per user. That includes MS Office 365, three mail accounts under Office 365 for the TMS / WMS suite, Wordpress and Slidebean. Hope I didn't forget nything.

On the other hand so, Catia liscences are usually part of the service (for engineering corps.) or part of the product development costs (for manufacturing corps). in both cases costs are covered by customers. Especially in Aerospace these costs are the least f the cost problems.