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So many companies try to force you onto SaaS. Products that you previously had a perpetual license for are now SaaS only if you want to upgrade. O365 is the o

So many companies try to force you onto SaaS. Products that you previously had a perpetual license for are now SaaS only if you want to upgrade. O365 is the only SaaS platform that makes sense where I work. But we have a bunch of SaaS services because that is the only way the product is offered. I hate SaaS.

mikorym 7y ago
Yesterday there was yet another SaaS-like "solution" pushed to my employer. I was like... I can do all of that in crontab. The guy didn't know what crontab was. I then said: "Well I guess one uses whatever your team members find most convenient." Everyone then agreed. But I think they didn't realise they were all agreeing on different things.
nexuist 7y ago
SaaS sucks until you run a SaaS company, then SaaS is the greatest business strategy since someone decided to sell books on the Internet.
lalos 7y ago
That was a strategic move, if you keep on the perpetual license for Office you promote people using other services for sync-in and storage. If you move it to a service like O365 you include that as part of the subscription (online editor and cloud storage). Not doing that transition might have cost Microsoft their position in the productivity app world, as new companies started popping up that were cloud first. Plus, I believe you can still buy Office licenses but you will not get updates after some time.
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  The thing about O365 is the pricing, its priced about/near the price of the 'Pro' version of the desktop version (for business users). We get a lot of value out of the online services that come with it, O365 is a better value than the straight perpetual license (it comes with a lot of other products). For Quickbooks on the other hand, I'm not sure that the SaaS offering has feature parity with the desktop version. I find a perpetual license for Acrobat Pro 2017 to be a better value than a subscription to Acrobat DC. And Adobe makes it hard to find how to purchase the perpetual license, you have to go searching for the right link. Yes, these are all business decisions and mostly working against me.
awinder 7y ago
I personally hate rose-colored visions of the past, of which this is one that I commonly run into :) Other things I hated: 1. yearly support contracts that were basically a necessity to purchase alongside (very expensive) enterprise software. 2. working at companies that had ancient versions of software running, and needing to dig up old matching documentation (when possible) 3. paying a large sum for a piece of software and then being "stuck" with it due to the investment being already made 4. the opaque sales processes that surrounded getting up & running with any piece of software
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  There are plenty of software packages with perpetual licensing that do not operate Oracle-style licensing BS and support. My experience with SaaS support is terrible. In my recent experience, software with Oracle-style licensing BS offer way better support. The flip is of being 'stuck' on a version is constant updates. Oh, they decided that the UI need a complete revamp over the weekend and now everything runs slower as folks learn the new interface that was foisted upon them. Or a SaaS decides to change its API and our custom integrations break. Not all SaaS platforms are good at communicating change and preparing users for change. Sending an email to the accounting person that paid the bill about the API change does no one any good. It seems we could argue this in either direction. Point is that some things I would like to buy perpetual, for reasons, are only available as SaaS. For the most part, in my case, SaaS isn't the best answer but in some cases I'm stuck with it. SaaS drives up costs, and frustration levels among the staff.
whatsmyusername 7y ago
I hated running dogshit insecure Java 1.6 applications for the-marketing-thing that don't benefit me in any way but sure suck up my time and attention. With SaaS I can give the keys to the department that wants the thing AND make them pay for it out of their P&L.
runforthehills 7y ago
"Buying the product" means you never get updates and are stuck with legacy junk that slowly gets further and further behind. I'm with everyone else, this is incredibly rose colored. SaaS at the business level is awesome. For personal use? Okay yeah I'd probably rather own whatever version outright rather than have to keep paying--it isn't going to impact me dramatically like it does a business if it doesn't get regular engineering work done on it.
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  SaaS means being forced to update like it or not. There is a lot of space between no updates and 'continuous improvement'.

mikorym 7y ago

Yesterday there was yet another SaaS-like "solution" pushed to my employer. I was like... I can do all of that in crontab. The guy didn't know what crontab was. I then said: "Well I guess one uses whatever your team members find most convenient." Everyone then agreed. But I think they didn't realise they were all agreeing on different things.

nexuist 7y ago

SaaS sucks until you run a SaaS company, then SaaS is the greatest business strategy since someone decided to sell books on the Internet.

lalos 7y ago

That was a strategic move, if you keep on the perpetual license for Office you promote people using other services for sync-in and storage. If you move it to a service like O365 you include that as part of the subscription (online editor and cloud storage). Not doing that transition might have cost Microsoft their position in the productivity app world, as new companies started popping up that were cloud first. Plus, I believe you can still buy Office licenses but you will not get updates after some time.

annoyingnoob 7y ago
The thing about O365 is the pricing, its priced about/near the price of the 'Pro' version of the desktop version (for business users). We get a lot of value out of the online services that come with it, O365 is a better value than the straight perpetual license (it comes with a lot of other products). For Quickbooks on the other hand, I'm not sure that the SaaS offering has feature parity with the desktop version. I find a perpetual license for Acrobat Pro 2017 to be a better value than a subscription to Acrobat DC. And Adobe makes it hard to find how to purchase the perpetual license, you have to go searching for the right link. Yes, these are all business decisions and mostly working against me.

awinder 7y ago

I personally hate rose-colored visions of the past, of which this is one that I commonly run into :) Other things I hated: 1. yearly support contracts that were basically a necessity to purchase alongside (very expensive) enterprise software. 2. working at companies that had ancient versions of software running, and needing to dig up old matching documentation (when possible) 3. paying a large sum for a piece of software and then being "stuck" with it due to the investment being already made 4. the opaque sales processes that surrounded getting up & running with any piece of software

annoyingnoob 7y ago
There are plenty of software packages with perpetual licensing that do not operate Oracle-style licensing BS and support. My experience with SaaS support is terrible. In my recent experience, software with Oracle-style licensing BS offer way better support. The flip is of being 'stuck' on a version is constant updates. Oh, they decided that the UI need a complete revamp over the weekend and now everything runs slower as folks learn the new interface that was foisted upon them. Or a SaaS decides to change its API and our custom integrations break. Not all SaaS platforms are good at communicating change and preparing users for change. Sending an email to the accounting person that paid the bill about the API change does no one any good. It seems we could argue this in either direction. Point is that some things I would like to buy perpetual, for reasons, are only available as SaaS. For the most part, in my case, SaaS isn't the best answer but in some cases I'm stuck with it. SaaS drives up costs, and frustration levels among the staff.

whatsmyusername 7y ago

I hated running dogshit insecure Java 1.6 applications for the-marketing-thing that don't benefit me in any way but sure suck up my time and attention. With SaaS I can give the keys to the department that wants the thing AND make them pay for it out of their P&L.

runforthehills 7y ago

"Buying the product" means you never get updates and are stuck with legacy junk that slowly gets further and further behind. I'm with everyone else, this is incredibly rose colored. SaaS at the business level is awesome. For personal use? Okay yeah I'd probably rather own whatever version outright rather than have to keep paying--it isn't going to impact me dramatically like it does a business if it doesn't get regular engineering work done on it.

annoyingnoob 7y ago
SaaS means being forced to update like it or not. There is a lot of space between no updates and 'continuous improvement'.