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"Ninety per cent of Fortune 500 companies use Azure AD, the sign-in engine for Office 365." - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/active-directory/integr

"Ninety per cent of Fortune 500 companies use Azure AD, the sign-in engine for Office 365." - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/active-directory/integrate/#features https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/active-directory/... But you can't know whether it works unless hobbyists tinker with it?? (Even though hobbyists do tinker with Windows)

lmm 6y ago
Yep. I've seen lots of terrible software used by Fortune 500 companies - the person making the purchasing decision usually isn't the person actually using it, so the software quality has no impact on whether it gets bought.
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  I've seen lots of terrible open source software - nobody is purchasing it, and the people who would normally make purchasing decisions aren't involved at all, so the software quality has no impact on whether it gets bought.
  - lmm 6y ago
    Sure. But you can find what people say about a given piece of open-source software; generally people will have tinkered with it and kicked the tires a bit and written up their impressions, maybe ran some benchmarks. And maybe you miss out on the occasional gem that way because there's a really good library that just hasn't been touched by anyone for whatever reason, but at least you can avoid picking a lemon. Whereas there are lots of lemons in the proprietary software market, and no real way to distinguish them.
    - jodrellblank 6y ago
      > there are lots of lemons in the proprietary software market, and no real way to distinguish them. You can find what people say about a given piece of proprietary software; generally people will have used it and written up their impressions, maybe ran some benchmarks. Have you honestly never seen a review of a closed source program? Never seen anyone write about their likes or dislikes? Never seen any shareware/try before you buy/free tier software? Never seen anyone use some, decide it was bad, and change to another vendor? Never seen someone try the free version of SQL server or comment about their experiences with IIS or review a new release of Windows? Never seen a computer game review? Or a magazine dedicated to game reviews? Or reviews of Apple app store software?
      - lmm 6y ago
        > Have you honestly never seen a review of a closed source program? Never seen anyone write about their likes or dislikes? Never seen any shareware/try before you buy/free tier software? Never seen anyone use some, decide it was bad, and change to another vendor? Never seen someone try the free version of SQL server or comment about their experiences with IIS or review a new release of Windows? For enterprise software? Pretty much no. You don't tend to get shareware-style free trials, the more common model is a fully functional (and sometimes even open source) free version and then a paid version with additional features. Companies do switch vendors but it's hard to impossible to connect that with the actual user experience. You see case studies but usually published by the vendor themselves; a neutral reviewer doing comparisons is virtually unheard of. And it's pretty common for the licenses to forbid benchmarking or reviews (Oracle famously does). When you're talking about software that only makes sense on the scale of a multi-machine network, who's going to go to the trouble of reviewing it? My experience is that hobbyists sometimes will, but only for the open-source stuff. Back when I worked for a Fortune 500 client we did do full-scale evaluations of proprietary systems, but they were always internal-only. If you're big enough to have your own evaluation department then sure, knock yourself out (this company was also big enough to do things like use their own internal programming language). But for a medium-sized company it's just too risky IME.

lmm 6y ago

Yep. I've seen lots of terrible software used by Fortune 500 companies - the person making the purchasing decision usually isn't the person actually using it, so the software quality has no impact on whether it gets bought.

jodrellblank 6y ago
I've seen lots of terrible open source software - nobody is purchasing it, and the people who would normally make purchasing decisions aren't involved at all, so the software quality has no impact on whether it gets bought.
- lmm 6y ago
  Sure. But you can find what people say about a given piece of open-source software; generally people will have tinkered with it and kicked the tires a bit and written up their impressions, maybe ran some benchmarks. And maybe you miss out on the occasional gem that way because there's a really good library that just hasn't been touched by anyone for whatever reason, but at least you can avoid picking a lemon. Whereas there are lots of lemons in the proprietary software market, and no real way to distinguish them.
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    > there are lots of lemons in the proprietary software market, and no real way to distinguish them. You can find what people say about a given piece of proprietary software; generally people will have used it and written up their impressions, maybe ran some benchmarks. Have you honestly never seen a review of a closed source program? Never seen anyone write about their likes or dislikes? Never seen any shareware/try before you buy/free tier software? Never seen anyone use some, decide it was bad, and change to another vendor? Never seen someone try the free version of SQL server or comment about their experiences with IIS or review a new release of Windows? Never seen a computer game review? Or a magazine dedicated to game reviews? Or reviews of Apple app store software?
    - lmm 6y ago
      > Have you honestly never seen a review of a closed source program? Never seen anyone write about their likes or dislikes? Never seen any shareware/try before you buy/free tier software? Never seen anyone use some, decide it was bad, and change to another vendor? Never seen someone try the free version of SQL server or comment about their experiences with IIS or review a new release of Windows? For enterprise software? Pretty much no. You don't tend to get shareware-style free trials, the more common model is a fully functional (and sometimes even open source) free version and then a paid version with additional features. Companies do switch vendors but it's hard to impossible to connect that with the actual user experience. You see case studies but usually published by the vendor themselves; a neutral reviewer doing comparisons is virtually unheard of. And it's pretty common for the licenses to forbid benchmarking or reviews (Oracle famously does). When you're talking about software that only makes sense on the scale of a multi-machine network, who's going to go to the trouble of reviewing it? My experience is that hobbyists sometimes will, but only for the open-source stuff. Back when I worked for a Fortune 500 client we did do full-scale evaluations of proprietary systems, but they were always internal-only. If you're big enough to have your own evaluation department then sure, knock yourself out (this company was also big enough to do things like use their own internal programming language). But for a medium-sized company it's just too risky IME.