[simonw]

$60k/year is 1/3 to 1/2 a developer/sysadmin. If maintaining in-house systems based on open source equivalents of all of those packages would take more than 1/2 a headcount, then they are making the right choice.

And even if they could do it all in-house, that's a developer who's not working on the stuff that makes their product distinctive. Running your own email sending / file sharing / customer support tracking / project management / sales lead management software has a massive opportunity cost.

[digital-rubber]

yes that's the tradeoff/investment, where people differ of opinion and I (very technical person, not management/paper pusher), find it more important to have in-house capabilities (even at higher cost) then to simply rely on a third party vendor.

Plus that you are not making any third party aware of anything, as you don't need them. And might save you a lot of hassle in the middle of the night and you need vendor support, which generally at such hours could generate even more cost.

In my humble opinion, technical pov, the more you do in-house, and the less you rely on third parties, the more freedom the company has.

Also any in-house developed product, could be sold, generating income. Also, i believe, that developing your own, gives you a certain knowledge which you don't get if you are simply adopting third party software.

It's of course way easier/more clear to calculate ROI when you spending specific amounts instead of investing in knowledge, control and self power. The returns on that can very a lot.

But, generally speaking, things are only 'expensive' if you think they are not worth it.

[Alupis]

I don't know why so many people keep tossing the $60K-$120K figure around for a SysAdmin. Your startup is not on the level of a Facebook/Google and does not need a SysAdmin who's background is managing systems at that scale. You really just need a college student who can run a few small servers and knows how to make backups for when things hit the fan. We're talking $15-$20 an hour, they get a lot of great work experience, and you get manged in-house IT.