4 ms·

The article vastly underestimates the desire of large enterprises to deal with only a handful of IT vendors. Sure, no enterprise wants monopoly pricing, but the

The article vastly underestimates the desire of large enterprises to deal with only a handful of IT vendors. Sure, no enterprise wants monopoly pricing, but they also don’t want dozens upon dozens of different IT vendors to deal with.

fakename11 6y ago
Dozens of IT vendors sounds like a security risk.
- dtech 6y ago
  Ah, the ever-common excuse from corporate IT to avoid any work or change: "it's not secure". If you add these I'll have bingo: * "We already have X for this" (X is only vaguely related and/or does it far, far inferior) * "it's too expensive" (said by $200/hour consultant vetoing $50/month SaaS) * "it doesn't conform to the architecture" (used for anything that isn't Java and Microsoft Office)
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Don't know how you work in a major tech company without having dozens of vendors...
MattGaiser 6y ago
You want to tackle monopoly power? Find a way to make purchasing accept other vendors.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Where I work, software purchasing is outsourced to a third-party company. I can appreciate the value this provides. And part of the reason why I hate the trend of turning everything into services is that regular (middle-class and below) people don't get to outsource the increasing amount of relationships they have to enter into.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    I too find it exhausting to manage all my subscriptions, communications, and such. I wish I could just hit "cancel all" and restart them as I needed them.
    - resu_nimda 6y ago
      It really feels like there should be a well-funded startup attempting to tackle this problem by now. A central service where you can easily manage many subscriptions, with integrations into other websites. There are a lot things I would pay for if I didn't have to go through the process of creating and managing yet another account. If it was just a one-click add/remove. News websites come to mind. I would also use a "buy access to this article for 50 cents" feature. It just has to be frictionless. The major players might not want to give up the money from people buying subscriptions and not using them much or forgetting to cancel them, but that seems like a lunch ready to be eaten.
  - pembrook 6y ago
    There’s 2 ways to make money in software: bundling and unbundling. There’s downsides to both. We’re on a trend of unbundling right now, but the pendulum is quickly shifting the other way.
- hrktb 6y ago
  In addition to that, before getting to the "accepting" part, it's often a PITA to even request new contracts with other vendors. Justifying the need for it, go though the paper work, estimate costs etc. VS just adding a new line item in an existing bill.
maelito 6y ago
This is where this kind of companies come into play : https://indie.host https://indie.host [french link] You have one person to talk to, they manage RocketChat, NextCloud (with an office suite, agenda, files), Jitsi, Discourse, CodiMD, all of this with a single sign on for your coworkers. All for 10€/month/user. It's not as integrated as say a full microsoft suite, but probably one order cheaper.

fakename11 6y ago

Dozens of IT vendors sounds like a security risk.

dtech 6y ago
Ah, the ever-common excuse from corporate IT to avoid any work or change: "it's not secure". If you add these I'll have bingo: * "We already have X for this" (X is only vaguely related and/or does it far, far inferior) * "it's too expensive" (said by $200/hour consultant vetoing $50/month SaaS) * "it doesn't conform to the architecture" (used for anything that isn't Java and Microsoft Office)
whimsicalism 6y ago
Don't know how you work in a major tech company without having dozens of vendors...

MattGaiser 6y ago

You want to tackle monopoly power? Find a way to make purchasing accept other vendors.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Where I work, software purchasing is outsourced to a third-party company. I can appreciate the value this provides. And part of the reason why I hate the trend of turning everything into services is that regular (middle-class and below) people don't get to outsource the increasing amount of relationships they have to enter into.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  I too find it exhausting to manage all my subscriptions, communications, and such. I wish I could just hit "cancel all" and restart them as I needed them.
  - resu_nimda 6y ago
    It really feels like there should be a well-funded startup attempting to tackle this problem by now. A central service where you can easily manage many subscriptions, with integrations into other websites. There are a lot things I would pay for if I didn't have to go through the process of creating and managing yet another account. If it was just a one-click add/remove. News websites come to mind. I would also use a "buy access to this article for 50 cents" feature. It just has to be frictionless. The major players might not want to give up the money from people buying subscriptions and not using them much or forgetting to cancel them, but that seems like a lunch ready to be eaten.
- pembrook 6y ago
  There’s 2 ways to make money in software: bundling and unbundling. There’s downsides to both. We’re on a trend of unbundling right now, but the pendulum is quickly shifting the other way.
hrktb 6y ago
In addition to that, before getting to the "accepting" part, it's often a PITA to even request new contracts with other vendors. Justifying the need for it, go though the paper work, estimate costs etc. VS just adding a new line item in an existing bill.

maelito 6y ago

This is where this kind of companies come into play : https://indie.host https://indie.host [french link] You have one person to talk to, they manage RocketChat, NextCloud (with an office suite, agenda, files), Jitsi, Discourse, CodiMD, all of this with a single sign on for your coworkers. All for 10€/month/user. It's not as integrated as say a full microsoft suite, but probably one order cheaper.