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> If customers tried to set that up with a web form they'd screw it up and hate our product. Then your product, its documentation, or both is crap. There are

by nknight 15y ago

> If customers tried to set that up with a web form they'd screw it up and hate our product. Then your product, its documentation, or both is crap. There are two kinds of "enterprise" solutions. The practically turn-key, and the kind that have ridiculous licensing models and "at least a day of training" attached. The latter are inevitably a gigantic waste of resources. The former are invaluable. Your job is to solve problems, not give your customers more problems.

ig1 15y ago
Some systems are inherently complex, it's stupid to pretend otherwise. It's like someone saying "Why do I have to learn to program, all I want to do is make an app for my phone".
ropman76 15y ago
I disagree. With software that works on top of client data the more hands on you are the better. Each client had "irregularities" in their data that have to be ironed out. With good access (and good communication) you can hopefully take care of "irregularities" before the client even knows they are there.
- ohyes 15y ago
  This is completely true, something that I'd like to note is that the more hands on your are, the better trust you build with the customer. This means they are more likely to keep buying your product (they know you and like you). They are more likely to come to you when they have an awesome idea for a feature that they want that would make their lives easier. (And you never say no to an ambitious request, you either explain that you lack the budget, or you try to redirect it into something that would fulfill the same need, but is easier for you to do, or you can explain how to do it with the currently offered software). This is not just enterprise stuff either. Having a bunch of enthusiastic and engaged customers pointing out the holes in your software is extremely useful. This all assumes that you have technical people who 'get it' and are looking to help satisfy the customer. I would never let an aggressive sales staff near them, however. It would be awesome to have something like 'contact a technical person to discuss solutions.'
ehutch79 15y ago
OR, documentation is a 'feature' you need to pay (double) for (true story)
bmelton 15y ago
General customer requirements for enterprise software: - Must integrate with their existing authentication. Their authentication may be LDAP, Active Directory, or any number of other things you may or may not have heard of. - Must store to their existing storage hardware. Hardware may be SANs from EMC, 3Par, HP, etc. Storage arrays may or may not be writable over the network. Storage arrays may require fiber channel. Storage arrays (I'm looking at you EMC Celera) may require interaction against custom APIs. - Must work against their existing load balancers -- load balancers may be hardware or software, may or may not utilize sticky sessions, and may or may not preserve the integrity of data packets passed along. - Must allow for SSL encrypted traffic to be intercepted by their proxies, decrypted and logged, then forwarded along and still run as quickly as you would expect any application to run. - Must support Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database. Take the '10/30 minute blog' programming videos you see for all the common frameworks, make them work with the above feature set, and tell me how long it takes. Then sell that to a company with more than $10,000 users, and then do so without requiring any support from you or your company. After that, if you still think it's as easy as you do, I will more than happily issue a public apology for having disagreed with you. Until then, honestly, I think you're looking at the problem space a little naively.
- nknight 15y ago
  You're really missing the point. If your product doesn't already meet the needs of a particular customer, it's not a product suitable for that customer. If the customer wants you to make it suitable, talk about the cost of that. Otherwise, stop annoying me with sales drones and let me give you money for the software I already know I need. Somewhere along the way it looks like you and a few other people have confused "products" and "consulting". They're not the same things. Either you have a product ready to go, or you don't. If you don't, you're not a software company, you're a consulting company, and should act like one -- don't pretend to have a packaged solution ready to go.
  - bmelton 15y ago
    It sounds like you're misinterpreting your own advice here. We do in fact have a product that's ready to go. We have all of the features I listed, plus a hundred others. However, once you get to having all those features, the product is no longer something that you can expect people to download and just install. Sure, there are people that can do it, but it isn't the majority, and it isn't the sort of pain we want our customers to have to experience. In short, our product requires both the software and the consulting. Not for lack of features, or lack of documentation, but for ease of integration. If the software already costs millions, then the user shouldn't be objectionable to another couple hundred thousand for a team of integration consultants to make their experience a smooth one. All that said, it honestly sounds like you don't have a lot of experience in this arena, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop looking down your nose at me for meeting the needs of our customers in exactly the way they expect them to be met. We're doing a fantastic job, and have stellar relationships with all of our customers, partners and vendors. Just because it isn't the way you'd prefer it isn't reason to be snide, especially as it doesn't sound like you're anywhere close to the size of our target customer.

by nknight 15y ago

ig1 15y ago

Some systems are inherently complex, it's stupid to pretend otherwise. It's like someone saying "Why do I have to learn to program, all I want to do is make an app for my phone".

ropman76 15y ago

I disagree. With software that works on top of client data the more hands on you are the better. Each client had "irregularities" in their data that have to be ironed out. With good access (and good communication) you can hopefully take care of "irregularities" before the client even knows they are there.

ohyes 15y ago
This is completely true, something that I'd like to note is that the more hands on your are, the better trust you build with the customer. This means they are more likely to keep buying your product (they know you and like you). They are more likely to come to you when they have an awesome idea for a feature that they want that would make their lives easier. (And you never say no to an ambitious request, you either explain that you lack the budget, or you try to redirect it into something that would fulfill the same need, but is easier for you to do, or you can explain how to do it with the currently offered software). This is not just enterprise stuff either. Having a bunch of enthusiastic and engaged customers pointing out the holes in your software is extremely useful. This all assumes that you have technical people who 'get it' and are looking to help satisfy the customer. I would never let an aggressive sales staff near them, however. It would be awesome to have something like 'contact a technical person to discuss solutions.'

ehutch79 15y ago

OR, documentation is a 'feature' you need to pay (double) for (true story)

bmelton 15y ago

General customer requirements for enterprise software: - Must integrate with their existing authentication. Their authentication may be LDAP, Active Directory, or any number of other things you may or may not have heard of. - Must store to their existing storage hardware. Hardware may be SANs from EMC, 3Par, HP, etc. Storage arrays may or may not be writable over the network. Storage arrays may require fiber channel. Storage arrays (I'm looking at you EMC Celera) may require interaction against custom APIs. - Must work against their existing load balancers -- load balancers may be hardware or software, may or may not utilize sticky sessions, and may or may not preserve the integrity of data packets passed along. - Must allow for SSL encrypted traffic to be intercepted by their proxies, decrypted and logged, then forwarded along and still run as quickly as you would expect any application to run. - Must support Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database. Take the '10/30 minute blog' programming videos you see for all the common frameworks, make them work with the above feature set, and tell me how long it takes. Then sell that to a company with more than $10,000 users, and then do so without requiring any support from you or your company. After that, if you still think it's as easy as you do, I will more than happily issue a public apology for having disagreed with you. Until then, honestly, I think you're looking at the problem space a little naively.

nknight 15y ago
You're really missing the point. If your product doesn't already meet the needs of a particular customer, it's not a product suitable for that customer. If the customer wants you to make it suitable, talk about the cost of that. Otherwise, stop annoying me with sales drones and let me give you money for the software I already know I need. Somewhere along the way it looks like you and a few other people have confused "products" and "consulting". They're not the same things. Either you have a product ready to go, or you don't. If you don't, you're not a software company, you're a consulting company, and should act like one -- don't pretend to have a packaged solution ready to go.
- bmelton 15y ago
  It sounds like you're misinterpreting your own advice here. We do in fact have a product that's ready to go. We have all of the features I listed, plus a hundred others. However, once you get to having all those features, the product is no longer something that you can expect people to download and just install. Sure, there are people that can do it, but it isn't the majority, and it isn't the sort of pain we want our customers to have to experience. In short, our product requires both the software and the consulting. Not for lack of features, or lack of documentation, but for ease of integration. If the software already costs millions, then the user shouldn't be objectionable to another couple hundred thousand for a team of integration consultants to make their experience a smooth one. All that said, it honestly sounds like you don't have a lot of experience in this arena, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop looking down your nose at me for meeting the needs of our customers in exactly the way they expect them to be met. We're doing a fantastic job, and have stellar relationships with all of our customers, partners and vendors. Just because it isn't the way you'd prefer it isn't reason to be snide, especially as it doesn't sound like you're anywhere close to the size of our target customer.