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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)

#91

Post by tombert »

mm89 wrote: post #82
toomuchtodo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java, PHP, MySQL, Postgresql, OpenSSL, Linux come to mind.

Perhaps this is an effect of learning to program in the 2010s, but paying for a programming language (Java, PHP) sounds crazy to me. Do people actually do this?

It's not terribly common anymore, but people used to pay for the Coldfusion programming language...well at least a compiler/interpreter for it. Outside of some third-party things like OpenBluedragon and Railo, if you wanted to deploy Coldfusion in any capacity, you had to pay Macromedia/Adobe for a license.

I don't know of any companies that are still using Coldfusion and I haven't had to touch it since 2012 (thank god), but it certainly was a common thing for awhile.

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

#92

Post by aguyfromnb »

virgilp wrote: post #59
aguyfromnb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Sure, but then there's the slightly more complicated economic calculus: do we build our own tooling now, for a significant up front cost, or do we buy the SaaS which we might use essentially forever for an unknown future TCO?

Nothing complicated about it. You start with SaaS, validate it's a good tool to have/actually used, evaluate monthly costs vs opportunity costs, build your own when/if it makes sense. The slightly more complicated question is "do we invest in optimizing SaaS costs/utilization? Or use those resources to start building our own?". But even for this question the right answer is usually fairly obvious.

>Nothing complicated about it.

If it was so easy, why are the companies in the article "fretting"? Because putting values on "good", "opportunity" and "makes sense" (not even counting the fact you have no control over the SaaS raising prices or going out of business in the future) is harder than we can spend $400/month or $50/month.

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

#93

Post by genghisjahn »

papito wrote: post #41
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.

Because most business in the United States is done despite the management, not because of it.

Where’s the list of awesome companies that succeed without managers?

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

#94

Post by Retric »

genghisjahn wrote: post #93
papito wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most business in the United States is done despite the management, not because of it.

Where’s the list of awesome companies that succeed without managers?

Valve and other flat organizations arguably qualify. Various tiny small startups may qualify depending on what people mean by managers.

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

#95

Post by sweeneyrod »

spencerwgreene wrote: post #26
paulie_a wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most enterprises don't spend >200k an employee. Do people really believe that is a normal salary?

The fully loaded cost of an employee for a business is not the employee's salary. "The fully-loaded costs of employees are much higher than their salary: exactly how much higher depends on your locality’s laws, your benefits package, and a bunch of other HR administrivia, but a reasonable guesstimate is between 150% and 200% of their salary." - https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

Most employees' salaries are not 100k.

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

#96

Post by throwaway5752 »

p_l wrote: post #53
brianr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the purchased software is worthwhile (i.e. it makes employees more effective; the company gets more output per employee expense dollar), this trend should actually increase employee pay. Higher output per employee allows a higher salary per employee while still being profitable.

It also allows to pocket more money instead of paying it to employee. Remember, many people in USA believe that corporation has duty to increase shareholder value. And similar stupid ideas.

Not sure if you are being facetious, but that's in fact the law. The board is a fiduciary of shareholder (investor) money. Is that a great idea for society? Not sure, until it changes we live in the world we live in.

And on the productivity point, that makes a good theoretical case but it is just not demonstrated by historical data. In the US, in the past 50 years, it even has a name (the pay-productivity gap or the wage gap). You can look at productivity vs wages since 1970 and see how they have not correlated. Further, you can go into income and wealth inquality growth over the same time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...) and see how the wealth generated by the productivity gains has been highly concentrated in the top 0.1% and 0.01% wealthiest. Some people will talk about real or nominal wages (adjustments with something called the Implicit Price Deflator) that show wages purchasing power increasing, but I think one can look at costs of home, college, and medical care and other critical things in social mobility that have increased in cost far exceeding inflation as complications to that idea.

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

#97

Post by rstupek »

mm89 wrote: post #82
toomuchtodo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java, PHP, MySQL, Postgresql, OpenSSL, Linux come to mind.

Perhaps this is an effect of learning to program in the 2010s, but paying for a programming language (Java, PHP) sounds crazy to me. Do people actually do this?

Yes you used to have to pay for your development tools (borland was a big player in the space). Even microsoft tools weren't free

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

#98

Post by xmprt »

genghisjahn wrote: post #93
papito wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most business in the United States is done despite the management, not because of it.

Where’s the list of awesome companies that succeed without managers?

Valve is the only one that I've heard of but without manager there need to be a lot of internal politics to get your work done.

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

phkahler wrote: post #43
JakeWesorick wrote: post #11

Lots of the SaaS products we use mean we don't have to hire more employees. So I'm not sure if dollars per employee is a meaningful stat.

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.

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