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I found this tidbit interesting: > Another recurring theme in interviews was that nobody wanted a managed service. This surprised me because so much of the tre

I found this tidbit interesting: > Another recurring theme in interviews was that nobody wanted a managed service. This surprised me because so much of the trend in software in the last 20 years has been toward SaaS, managed services, and monthly payments. Sheet metal shops wanted none of it. [...] While SaaS businesses often highlight the advantages of low up-front cost and minimal IT maintenance, sheet metal shops didn't value these things. Independence mattered far more than convenience or cost. Multiple shops told me that they didn't want their businesses grinding to a halt because their software vendor went out of business or experienced a network outage. I asked if they minded maintaining their own servers, and I was surprised to hear consistent “no"s. [...] Given that some of these businesses have been operating for 70+ years, I see why they plan to outlast their software vendors. Still, this sentiment surprised me because it seemed to contradict most of the conventional wisdom about SaaS sales.

m0zg 7y ago
>> seemed to contradict most of the conventional wisdom about SaaS sales "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair Look at where this "conventional wisdom" comes from and it'll all fall into place.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kristianc 7y ago
  There are SaaS vendors which are very successful at selling into contractors and subcontractors of all sizes. I know, as I work for one of them.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    And I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that SaaS vendors are going to do their best to convince you that SaaS is the only viable choice, whereas for many businesses on-prem is just fine and it isn't going anywhere, because it works.
WJW 7y ago
Most of the conventional wisdom about SaaS is spread by (marketing departments of) the SaaS companies themselves, who have noticed that the lifetime value of a customer is higher if they pay you every month (ideally with some form of lock-in) than if they pay you once for a program they can keep using without extra payments. If the customer is a startup themselves and therefore has a very short expected lifespan, this does not necessarily matter because the lower upfront cost enables cheaper experimentation and pivoting. If you are in a business with product/market fit that has been around for some time already, the lowest possible upfront cost is much less of an issue compared to the total cost of ownership and the risk of a critical dependency disappearing. SaaS startups do poorly on both of those metrics.
esotericn 7y ago
SaaS is such a tiny niche relative to overall software use, particularly for power users and 'hard engineering' jobs (e.g. not another Uber for X). Basically every company that's been around or plans to be around for more than a few years is primarily self hosted. Chat and email, e.g. stuff that's tangential to the work, might be outsourced, and they might use (the equivalent of) EC2 and S3 but ultimately it's your software running on your VM's. Scrappy startups that don't actually make any money but are trying to thrash something together quickly to convince a greater fool tend to use way more.
- sansnomme 7y ago
  And yet companies like Autodesk are pivoting towards subscription too. They are about as "hard engineering" as you can get, literally.
  - jerf 7y ago
    Are they doing it because their customers are demanding it, or because Autodesk's business people are demanding it? I honestly don't know, so that is an honest question. I would love to hear from Autodesk customers on that topic. The former is possible. But the latter is too. Businesses love subscription revenue for all kinds of reasons, including just that it makes the accounting work out well. They might be willing to even make their customers take a bit of a hit relative to what they want to force something into a subscription model for their own needs.
    - kristianc 7y ago
      They’re largely doing it because as a contractor having to go back and forth between the construction site and a trailer / office to access items like drawings in on-prem software is a PITA and leads to errors and rework. It also carries enormous risk of anything happens to the device with the data on it. Employee that just got fired drops laptop with project plans in an oil drum on the way out? Yeah that happens. All of the big players in construction project management are cloud and mobile and anyone that tried to pitch anything different would be at a substantial disadvantage for all but the smallest contractors.
shifto 7y ago
SaaS is almost always only beneficial to the vendor, not the client.

m0zg 7y ago

>> seemed to contradict most of the conventional wisdom about SaaS sales "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair Look at where this "conventional wisdom" comes from and it'll all fall into place.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kristianc 7y ago
There are SaaS vendors which are very successful at selling into contractors and subcontractors of all sizes. I know, as I work for one of them.
- m0zg 7y ago
  And I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that SaaS vendors are going to do their best to convince you that SaaS is the only viable choice, whereas for many businesses on-prem is just fine and it isn't going anywhere, because it works.

WJW 7y ago

Most of the conventional wisdom about SaaS is spread by (marketing departments of) the SaaS companies themselves, who have noticed that the lifetime value of a customer is higher if they pay you every month (ideally with some form of lock-in) than if they pay you once for a program they can keep using without extra payments. If the customer is a startup themselves and therefore has a very short expected lifespan, this does not necessarily matter because the lower upfront cost enables cheaper experimentation and pivoting. If you are in a business with product/market fit that has been around for some time already, the lowest possible upfront cost is much less of an issue compared to the total cost of ownership and the risk of a critical dependency disappearing. SaaS startups do poorly on both of those metrics.

esotericn 7y ago

SaaS is such a tiny niche relative to overall software use, particularly for power users and 'hard engineering' jobs (e.g. not another Uber for X). Basically every company that's been around or plans to be around for more than a few years is primarily self hosted. Chat and email, e.g. stuff that's tangential to the work, might be outsourced, and they might use (the equivalent of) EC2 and S3 but ultimately it's your software running on your VM's. Scrappy startups that don't actually make any money but are trying to thrash something together quickly to convince a greater fool tend to use way more.

sansnomme 7y ago
And yet companies like Autodesk are pivoting towards subscription too. They are about as "hard engineering" as you can get, literally.
- jerf 7y ago
  Are they doing it because their customers are demanding it, or because Autodesk's business people are demanding it? I honestly don't know, so that is an honest question. I would love to hear from Autodesk customers on that topic. The former is possible. But the latter is too. Businesses love subscription revenue for all kinds of reasons, including just that it makes the accounting work out well. They might be willing to even make their customers take a bit of a hit relative to what they want to force something into a subscription model for their own needs.
  - kristianc 7y ago
    They’re largely doing it because as a contractor having to go back and forth between the construction site and a trailer / office to access items like drawings in on-prem software is a PITA and leads to errors and rework. It also carries enormous risk of anything happens to the device with the data on it. Employee that just got fired drops laptop with project plans in an oil drum on the way out? Yeah that happens. All of the big players in construction project management are cloud and mobile and anyone that tried to pitch anything different would be at a substantial disadvantage for all but the smallest contractors.

shifto 7y ago

SaaS is almost always only beneficial to the vendor, not the client.