4 ms·

Microsoft practically forced us to use Windows stack for anything and everything This is called “dogfooding” and all companies should do it. How can you sell t

by gaius 8y ago

Microsoft practically forced us to use Windows stack for anything and everything This is called “dogfooding” and all companies should do it. How can you sell to customers or understand customers if you’re not using the product yourself? One day I’d love to visit SAP and see how they do their own vacations and expenses. It can’t be with their own software.

flukus 8y ago
I wish they dogfooded on spinning rust and limited RAM.
- gaius 8y ago
  It’s always been the case that developers have better hardware than end users, I don’t see that changing anytime soon!
daveFNbuck 8y ago
Customers and potential customers also use competing products, so you also need to use those to sell to, understand, and grow your customers. Maybe SAP uses their own software internally and they've all become power users that aren't bothered by the issues that you're having. Perhaps if they used competing products they'd have a better understanding of where theirs is lacking.
- gaius 8y ago
  You can always spot software that is or isn’t used by the people writing it
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't use their own software. I'm saying that they shouldn't use it exclusively.
santaragolabs 8y ago
I've done some security contracting work for the folks in Walldorf over the years; I've seen first-hand some SAP FTE's getting insanely frustrated putting in their expenses in their own systems. Which was pretty hilarious to watch. And most folks there fully acknowledge that usability is not their strength traditionally. Things like uptime, support-contracts, having someone on-site within three hours when your multi-millon-dollar-order-processing-SAP-cluster goes down etc are what matter to their customers more than usability (traditionally). Things are changing and a lot of effort has been put into getting better at UI/UX though. But I haven't been involved with them for several years now so I don't know where they are at or what their current offerings are (I keep tabs a bit on HANA developments but that's it really).
gdegani 8y ago
SAP Is actually pretty good in eating their own dog food, usually the problem is that the customers are super slow in adopting the new stuff that SAP releases...I worked at SAP for 9 years.
majewsky 8y ago
I work at SAP. I book absences via a web UI for a SAP system. I record my time using a very nice HTML5 UI that hooks into an SAP system via RPC. I record travel expenses in Concur (the company of the same name was acquired by SAP, so that counts as dogfooding too). SAP still needs to get better at their dogfooding game in some areas (e.g. using our own ticket system products instead of internally-grown idiosyncrasies), but we're getting there.

by gaius 8y ago

flukus 8y ago

I wish they dogfooded on spinning rust and limited RAM.

gaius 8y ago
It’s always been the case that developers have better hardware than end users, I don’t see that changing anytime soon!

daveFNbuck 8y ago

Customers and potential customers also use competing products, so you also need to use those to sell to, understand, and grow your customers. Maybe SAP uses their own software internally and they've all become power users that aren't bothered by the issues that you're having. Perhaps if they used competing products they'd have a better understanding of where theirs is lacking.

gaius 8y ago
You can always spot software that is or isn’t used by the people writing it
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't use their own software. I'm saying that they shouldn't use it exclusively.

santaragolabs 8y ago

I've done some security contracting work for the folks in Walldorf over the years; I've seen first-hand some SAP FTE's getting insanely frustrated putting in their expenses in their own systems. Which was pretty hilarious to watch. And most folks there fully acknowledge that usability is not their strength traditionally. Things like uptime, support-contracts, having someone on-site within three hours when your multi-millon-dollar-order-processing-SAP-cluster goes down etc are what matter to their customers more than usability (traditionally). Things are changing and a lot of effort has been put into getting better at UI/UX though. But I haven't been involved with them for several years now so I don't know where they are at or what their current offerings are (I keep tabs a bit on HANA developments but that's it really).

gdegani 8y ago

SAP Is actually pretty good in eating their own dog food, usually the problem is that the customers are super slow in adopting the new stuff that SAP releases...I worked at SAP for 9 years.

majewsky 8y ago

I work at SAP. I book absences via a web UI for a SAP system. I record my time using a very nice HTML5 UI that hooks into an SAP system via RPC. I record travel expenses in Concur (the company of the same name was acquired by SAP, so that counts as dogfooding too). SAP still needs to get better at their dogfooding game in some areas (e.g. using our own ticket system products instead of internally-grown idiosyncrasies), but we're getting there.