4 ms·

Completely agree with the "don't want to pay for software" bit. Heck, they don't want to pay for ANYTHING. Pirated windows, pirated accounting software, cheapas

by asto 15y ago

Completely agree with the "don't want to pay for software" bit. Heck, they don't want to pay for ANYTHING. Pirated windows, pirated accounting software, cheapass website because they look for the cheapest deal... the list is endless.

architgupta 15y ago
My intuition is if people can get away with piracy, they will do it. - SaaS is good as piracy is not a big problem. Small/Medium Enterprise don't see a huge benefit of paying for Technology. Its both a mindset and a cost issue. We do Tax Returns, so we see how margins are quite low for most Indian Businesses. Paying for software that can be pirated easily might tip them to a loss. Software cost isn't factored in as a cost of doing business.
- mehtapratiroop 15y ago
  @asto you are missing the point. Piracy is obviously a big problem. But it is a problem in practically every country. The issue here is that in India it is hard to sell technology products (SaaS or otherwise) because Indian businesses are unable to comprehend what technology can do for them. It boils down to the competence of the tech managers/evaluators at these orgs. Some of them are poor and they don't even know it.
  - asto 15y ago
    It doesn't matter what the underlying reasons are. The point is if you are going to invest resources in something that requires Indians to actually pay for it (regardless of payment model), you are taking a big risk. PS: I am saying "Indians" because I am quite familiar with the situation here. I am sure though, that things are quite similar in most "developing nations".
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - gizzlon 15y ago
    "Piracy is obviously a big problem. But it is a problem in practically every country." Inside businesses? Really? Don't think I have ever seen pirated software at the places I have worked, and I don't believe it's very common. I have seen people "borrowing" software to install on their personal computers, but that's something else. Is this just in Scandinavia?
    - architgupta 15y ago
      Piracy is quite common in India (both Businesses and consumers). I think piracy in other Third World countries as well (anecdotal).
    - mehtapratiroop 15y ago
      Well piracy is a problem for s/w industry in general. 'Borrowing' is a neat little alternative to the word 'piracy' :)
- asto 15y ago
  Mindset over cost. Companies here do all sorts of things to avoid small costs. I've seen some wrangle with hosting their own email on a server they have already purchased or make do with a poor experience with shared hosts simply to avoid the cost of paying for google apps once they have more than 10 users. They pay their employees atleast Rs 25,000 a month and are fretting about Rs 250?
free 15y ago
I am not so sure. I see two problems in the current situation here. 1. Pricing. The cost of most software is comparable to its cost in U.S. A windows 7 professional edition costs around 8000 bucks, which I think is pretty high. I am sure most people would gladly pay if they thought it was reasonable. Same with books. 2. Convenience. Most people are wary of using their credit cards or debit cards online. For physical goods, there is Cash On Delivery which is working out pretty well for a lot of companies. Not sure what the alternative is for software thought. For example, look at Flipkart. They are killing it. Also could not make much out of the article.
- architgupta 15y ago
  - Cash on Delivery has a lot of issues. I won't elaborate but, customers refuse the sale later on (impulse buy regrets), delayed booking of revenue, costs around collecting and cash reconciliation. My post is mostly about - Indian Businesses and consumers don't pay for Technology Products. - If they want to pay, they don't have mechanisms to pay you online. - Most people aren't online. They are offline.
  - free 15y ago
    Again, I am not so sure if I agree with all your points here. >>Cash on Delivery has a lot of issues. I won't elaborate but, customers refuse the sale later on (impulse buy regrets), delayed booking of revenue, costs around collecting and cash reconciliation. So do other modes of payments. There will always be customers who will want to get a refund. As I said am not entirely sure what the best solution is for non-physical transactions. >>Indian Businesses and consumers don't pay for Technology Products. This a blanket statement. Maybe the types of businesses we interact with are very different. From my experience a lot of them are ready to pay well if they see the benefits. >>If they want to pay, they don't have mechanisms to pay you online. Umm, this is false. There are lots of ways to pay online. IRCTC does this on a decent scale. All that being said, I agree it can be hard doing business but I don't believe it is any harder than doing it anywhere else. Every market has its set of advantages and disadvantages, but one needs to focus on what can be done instead of obsessing over what cannot be done. I looked at your site and like the idea. I am sure you must have tried this but have you tried making up deals with IT companies where you do the tax filings for all the people in the company for a bulk rate. A lot of companies do this since the guys collect the documents from the office saving the employees time and your pricing is very reasonable. Also, they are the ones who'd be more likely to understand and pay for this. Cheers
kamaal 15y ago
cheapass website because they look for the cheapest deal... Why is this wrong. I don't see anything wrong in this. Don't deals work around the world. Haven't you heard of sites like groupon?
- asto 15y ago
  Cheap web-developers do shoddy work. Why are you pulling groupon into this? Businesses offer discounts through groupon. The business itself may be among the worst of its kind or among the best. So the quality of product/service received depends on the business offering discount. If you are hiring the cheapest web-developer in the market however, I can guarantee you that you will end up with somebody incompetent.
  - kamaal 15y ago
    You are getting into classic Nerd rage. Lets take the example of Flipkart. It might not be the epitome of tech innovation. But Flipkart is sheer awesomeness. Let me tell you why! They might have built their site with php, and they might use MySQL and they might use Java. None of that matters. It doesn't matter that they don't use Python, or NoSQL or Ruby on Rails. It doesn't matter if their webpages load 0.01 ms slower than others. Let me tell you what matters. What matters is, somebody with an email can go on their site and order stuff even without a credit card. And they are trustworthy to deliver the good at your doorstep. And they do this with several thousands of customers everyday. This is what matters! They solved a problem, they do it efficiently and they do that several thousand times a day. Code is not an answer to all solutions. In case of a business many things matters. Business is a proposition of a many things and tech is one of them. Merely writing efficient code is not going to make you successful. Although writing efficient code will help you to be successful.
    - pm90 15y ago
      This is a very good point. I think the assumption was "cheap" means "works poorly".

by asto 15y ago

architgupta 15y ago

My intuition is if people can get away with piracy, they will do it. - SaaS is good as piracy is not a big problem. Small/Medium Enterprise don't see a huge benefit of paying for Technology. Its both a mindset and a cost issue. We do Tax Returns, so we see how margins are quite low for most Indian Businesses. Paying for software that can be pirated easily might tip them to a loss. Software cost isn't factored in as a cost of doing business.

mehtapratiroop 15y ago
@asto you are missing the point. Piracy is obviously a big problem. But it is a problem in practically every country. The issue here is that in India it is hard to sell technology products (SaaS or otherwise) because Indian businesses are unable to comprehend what technology can do for them. It boils down to the competence of the tech managers/evaluators at these orgs. Some of them are poor and they don't even know it.
- asto 15y ago
  It doesn't matter what the underlying reasons are. The point is if you are going to invest resources in something that requires Indians to actually pay for it (regardless of payment model), you are taking a big risk. PS: I am saying "Indians" because I am quite familiar with the situation here. I am sure though, that things are quite similar in most "developing nations".
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- gizzlon 15y ago
  "Piracy is obviously a big problem. But it is a problem in practically every country." Inside businesses? Really? Don't think I have ever seen pirated software at the places I have worked, and I don't believe it's very common. I have seen people "borrowing" software to install on their personal computers, but that's something else. Is this just in Scandinavia?
  - architgupta 15y ago
    Piracy is quite common in India (both Businesses and consumers). I think piracy in other Third World countries as well (anecdotal).
  - mehtapratiroop 15y ago
    Well piracy is a problem for s/w industry in general. 'Borrowing' is a neat little alternative to the word 'piracy' :)
asto 15y ago
Mindset over cost. Companies here do all sorts of things to avoid small costs. I've seen some wrangle with hosting their own email on a server they have already purchased or make do with a poor experience with shared hosts simply to avoid the cost of paying for google apps once they have more than 10 users. They pay their employees atleast Rs 25,000 a month and are fretting about Rs 250?

free 15y ago

I am not so sure. I see two problems in the current situation here. 1. Pricing. The cost of most software is comparable to its cost in U.S. A windows 7 professional edition costs around 8000 bucks, which I think is pretty high. I am sure most people would gladly pay if they thought it was reasonable. Same with books. 2. Convenience. Most people are wary of using their credit cards or debit cards online. For physical goods, there is Cash On Delivery which is working out pretty well for a lot of companies. Not sure what the alternative is for software thought. For example, look at Flipkart. They are killing it. Also could not make much out of the article.

architgupta 15y ago
- Cash on Delivery has a lot of issues. I won't elaborate but, customers refuse the sale later on (impulse buy regrets), delayed booking of revenue, costs around collecting and cash reconciliation. My post is mostly about - Indian Businesses and consumers don't pay for Technology Products. - If they want to pay, they don't have mechanisms to pay you online. - Most people aren't online. They are offline.
- free 15y ago
  Again, I am not so sure if I agree with all your points here. >>Cash on Delivery has a lot of issues. I won't elaborate but, customers refuse the sale later on (impulse buy regrets), delayed booking of revenue, costs around collecting and cash reconciliation. So do other modes of payments. There will always be customers who will want to get a refund. As I said am not entirely sure what the best solution is for non-physical transactions. >>Indian Businesses and consumers don't pay for Technology Products. This a blanket statement. Maybe the types of businesses we interact with are very different. From my experience a lot of them are ready to pay well if they see the benefits. >>If they want to pay, they don't have mechanisms to pay you online. Umm, this is false. There are lots of ways to pay online. IRCTC does this on a decent scale. All that being said, I agree it can be hard doing business but I don't believe it is any harder than doing it anywhere else. Every market has its set of advantages and disadvantages, but one needs to focus on what can be done instead of obsessing over what cannot be done. I looked at your site and like the idea. I am sure you must have tried this but have you tried making up deals with IT companies where you do the tax filings for all the people in the company for a bulk rate. A lot of companies do this since the guys collect the documents from the office saving the employees time and your pricing is very reasonable. Also, they are the ones who'd be more likely to understand and pay for this. Cheers

kamaal 15y ago

cheapass website because they look for the cheapest deal... Why is this wrong. I don't see anything wrong in this. Don't deals work around the world. Haven't you heard of sites like groupon?

asto 15y ago
Cheap web-developers do shoddy work. Why are you pulling groupon into this? Businesses offer discounts through groupon. The business itself may be among the worst of its kind or among the best. So the quality of product/service received depends on the business offering discount. If you are hiring the cheapest web-developer in the market however, I can guarantee you that you will end up with somebody incompetent.
- kamaal 15y ago
  You are getting into classic Nerd rage. Lets take the example of Flipkart. It might not be the epitome of tech innovation. But Flipkart is sheer awesomeness. Let me tell you why! They might have built their site with php, and they might use MySQL and they might use Java. None of that matters. It doesn't matter that they don't use Python, or NoSQL or Ruby on Rails. It doesn't matter if their webpages load 0.01 ms slower than others. Let me tell you what matters. What matters is, somebody with an email can go on their site and order stuff even without a credit card. And they are trustworthy to deliver the good at your doorstep. And they do this with several thousands of customers everyday. This is what matters! They solved a problem, they do it efficiently and they do that several thousand times a day. Code is not an answer to all solutions. In case of a business many things matters. Business is a proposition of a many things and tech is one of them. Merely writing efficient code is not going to make you successful. Although writing efficient code will help you to be successful.
  - pm90 15y ago
    This is a very good point. I think the assumption was "cheap" means "works poorly".