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by neltnerb 4695 days ago
Agreed. I run a small business (thankfully not doing software) in Massachusetts. I don't mind collecting sales tax, but when they make it an overhead nightmare it's impossible to figure out. I'm just one person; when your revenues are in the $10k range, hiring someone to figure it out is impossible. If they just charged a fixed rate for everything it would at least not so heavily favor big business over small companies.

I'm also confused because it seems that most of the reasoning is that companies sell the software for cheap and then make the service contract expensive. I've seen this done by companies like Autodesk and National Instruments for sure, so I can see why they'd dislike it. I design custom equipment, and I'd be tempted to do the same (charge at close to cost for equipment and charge as a service for labor). But this seems like an incredibly poorly conceived way to fix the problem that will cause more issues than it will address, and it's surely not limited to software. I could pull the same trick in any kind of contract work.
2 comments
mvc 4695 days ago
> software for cheap and then make the service contract expensive

If the software is cheap, it is expensive to service it.

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pc86 4695 days ago
I know what you're saying, but I think his point was if you spend $100k developing software, sell it for $100 and sell service contracts for $10k instead of selling it for $5k with a similarly priced service contract.
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thecodeore 4694 days ago
I have never heard anyone describe "Autodesk" as "cheap software"

However the "Sell software cheap and then charge for service" is the OPEN SOURCE MODEL, where the software is given FREELY, and if you need professional help you have to pay, that is certainly not the model Autodesk uses.

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neltnerb 4694 days ago
Cheap compared to the service contract. If you sign up for things like paid training they'll basically give you the licenses for free. This is from experience, at least for new companies where they want to get lock-in.

I don't see how it being the open source model is relevant. I'm not judging the validity of the practice, this is literally what the representatives claimed the logic was.

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