4 ms·

You do outsourcing for one and one reason only: you need to throw warm bodies onto a problem for cheap. Everything else is expensive, and any other reason is su

You do outsourcing for one and one reason only: you need to throw warm bodies onto a problem for cheap. Everything else is expensive, and any other reason is sugar coating. Having inbound QA? Expensive! Checks on firmware? Expensive! Exhaustive testing before shipping firmware so that edge cases are cared for before the machine is in the field? Expensive! Get rid of it all! Just look at our bottom line grow. You know what else is expensive? You need to troubleshoot some gear but you can't get in easily. Sophisticated procedures for getting into a router take time and skill to implement and to use, so they are, yes, you guessed it right: Expensive! What is not expensive? Having a surefire set of shared credentials that will work on bloody anything, that's what!

jacquesm 3y ago
Short term cheap, but long term very expensive. I stopped using CISCO after the first time, but I will never know how my current vendor deals with these things either because it's not as if this gear comes with full source code attached and even if it did I wouldn't have the resources to audit it. But inside CISCO even the most basic code review should have caught this, besides that even for test purposes they should have never ever implemented this.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  >Short term cheap, but long term very expensive Inside the MBA ideology, that "long term very expensive" doesn't exist. Lowering costs is good long term, because it grows the market and gives the company more money to invest into competitive advantage and grow its brand.
  - onetimeuse92304 3y ago
    I don't care if it is a prevalent ideology. If the ideology calls for providing poor service to the customer, somebody will find a way to provide better service and will boot you out of the market entirely. Getting your company disrupted or getting your market share diminished is extremely expensive and this is my understanding of what Jacques meant.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      That sounds nice but I don't think it actually happens. Shittier but cheaper service seems to always fare better than the better but more expensive one.
      - onetimeuse92304 3y ago
        Fully disagree, and especially with "always". Fortunately, it is trivial to show it is false. What kind of shiny rectangle do you have in your pocket. Is it the cheapest option? Which company in that market makes the most expensive product? Which company in the market fares best? And Cisco itself, for decades, was not only the most expensive network equipment in multiple markets but also bringing highest margins and biggest bucks.
AmericanChopper 3y ago
> You do outsourcing for one and one reason only: you need to throw warm bodies onto a problem for cheap. Everything else is expensive, and any other reason is sugar coating. Do people who post these silly hyperboles sincerely believe them? There’s plenty of other reasons to outsource something, including many where it’s known from the outset that it would be the more expensive option.
- onetimeuse92304 3y ago
  There is a good reason for this particular one. I don't have anything against outsourcing. There is plenty of reasons to outsource, true. But there is one that is most important and IT IS NOT THE COST. I am not saying the cost is not important, I am just saying it is not the most important. The most important reason is that you want to focus on your core product and not on everything else. If your core product that you sell to your customers are routers, if you are the CEO of the company, you probably do not want to oversee a division that produces accounting software or remote desktop software. If you need these things, you either buy them or outsource them. You want to spend all your focus producing the best product for your customers, and this is routers. Not anything else that does not directly go into making better experience for your costumers. It usually is or at least, in principle, should be cheaper. Because for some reason if somebody cares for the product, the total cost to produce the product at a given quality level will be lower.
  - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
    But then your core product is the routers, and you outsource their firmware, you also outsource a very good chunk of hardware they are made of, and this is where what you're saying kind of falls apart. Because from the looks of it, if I assume what you're saying is 100% true, the product is sales contracts for the routers and not the routers themselves.
    - onetimeuse92304 3y ago
      Yep. And companies buy networking equipment, not sales experience. And when the networking equipment sucks, they are looking to find something else.

jacquesm 3y ago

Short term cheap, but long term very expensive. I stopped using CISCO after the first time, but I will never know how my current vendor deals with these things either because it's not as if this gear comes with full source code attached and even if it did I wouldn't have the resources to audit it. But inside CISCO even the most basic code review should have caught this, besides that even for test purposes they should have never ever implemented this.

Qwertious 3y ago
>Short term cheap, but long term very expensive Inside the MBA ideology, that "long term very expensive" doesn't exist. Lowering costs is good long term, because it grows the market and gives the company more money to invest into competitive advantage and grow its brand.
- onetimeuse92304 3y ago
  I don't care if it is a prevalent ideology. If the ideology calls for providing poor service to the customer, somebody will find a way to provide better service and will boot you out of the market entirely. Getting your company disrupted or getting your market share diminished is extremely expensive and this is my understanding of what Jacques meant.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    That sounds nice but I don't think it actually happens. Shittier but cheaper service seems to always fare better than the better but more expensive one.
    - onetimeuse92304 3y ago
      Fully disagree, and especially with "always". Fortunately, it is trivial to show it is false. What kind of shiny rectangle do you have in your pocket. Is it the cheapest option? Which company in that market makes the most expensive product? Which company in the market fares best? And Cisco itself, for decades, was not only the most expensive network equipment in multiple markets but also bringing highest margins and biggest bucks.

AmericanChopper 3y ago

> You do outsourcing for one and one reason only: you need to throw warm bodies onto a problem for cheap. Everything else is expensive, and any other reason is sugar coating. Do people who post these silly hyperboles sincerely believe them? There’s plenty of other reasons to outsource something, including many where it’s known from the outset that it would be the more expensive option.

onetimeuse92304 3y ago
There is a good reason for this particular one. I don't have anything against outsourcing. There is plenty of reasons to outsource, true. But there is one that is most important and IT IS NOT THE COST. I am not saying the cost is not important, I am just saying it is not the most important. The most important reason is that you want to focus on your core product and not on everything else. If your core product that you sell to your customers are routers, if you are the CEO of the company, you probably do not want to oversee a division that produces accounting software or remote desktop software. If you need these things, you either buy them or outsource them. You want to spend all your focus producing the best product for your customers, and this is routers. Not anything else that does not directly go into making better experience for your costumers. It usually is or at least, in principle, should be cheaper. Because for some reason if somebody cares for the product, the total cost to produce the product at a given quality level will be lower.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  But then your core product is the routers, and you outsource their firmware, you also outsource a very good chunk of hardware they are made of, and this is where what you're saying kind of falls apart. Because from the looks of it, if I assume what you're saying is 100% true, the product is sales contracts for the routers and not the routers themselves.
  - onetimeuse92304 3y ago
    Yep. And companies buy networking equipment, not sales experience. And when the networking equipment sucks, they are looking to find something else.