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by satvikpendem 512 days ago
> These are too often just VMs running an installed solution in a 3rd party cloud, run like garbage and cost way too much

I mean, you try making such software and let me know how that goes for you. This type of vague criticism sounds a lot like the typical engineer retort of "I can build it myself in a weekend," discounting the real complexity involved.
1 comments
trimethylpurine 511 days ago
I'll try to be more specific. Stuffing a win32 app into a Citrix box and selling it to the next private equity that will offshore your support while your customer's contract milks them for another 3 years doesn't make for an enticing offer for decision makers. It makes a lot of sense for the private equity purchaser who will sell the company again before those contracts run dry and the software is shuttered or replaced.

As the decision maker (also a software engineer) I will work hard to avoid SaaS because it's a sensible move. And that is especially true if other engineers believe as you do that it's difficult to make a good product.

By comparison, the same app, installed locally, doesn't suffer from any of the above problems. There is no contract, no latency, and I don't have any risk if the company is sold. I will likely just have to find another solution provider, in the last case, but at least I'm not locked into additional years of servitude supporting a poor product for my users.

In summary, SaaS itself might be great. But the subscriptions that it usually comes with tend to incentivize bad vendor behavior and a poor customer experience.

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satvikpendem 511 days ago
Why would there be no contract with a local app? At the company scales you're talking about, enterprise, there absolutely will be. These aren't going to be standalone 100 dollar apps for that level of scale.
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trimethylpurine 511 days ago
>At the company scales you're talking about, enterprise, there absolutely will be.

Many very large enterprise software providers (Sage, Oracle, IBM) and small OSS shops (Grafana, Zabbix, ProxMox) offer run local versions of ERPs or entire applications with no usage restrictions. The licensing pays for support and updates, not usage. In this model, the software provider has incentive to provide good support, and quality updates. They care to maintain the product because their care is what they are selling.

So, it won't absolutely be the case at this scale. Business as usual is the opposite of that at this scale. I should have to prove beyond doubt that there is no alternative when I agree to sign for SaaS. I'm agreeing to take on a lot of risk when I do that.

>Why would there be no contract with a local app?

Because that's what I want to buy, and for good reason (see above). And someone has figured that out and sold it to me.

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