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I'm surprised nobody has mentioned economies of scale so far. Enterprise applications are highly customized systems with deployments of 1 in many cases. We tal

by ibsulon 18y ago

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned economies of scale so far. Enterprise applications are highly customized systems with deployments of 1 in many cases. We talk about the outrageous cost, but consider an 500,000 dollar application. That's a lot for a company, but that's not a lot for an application budget. With a 1.6 multiplier for expenses, that's enough for 2 fte senior engineers @ 90k or 3 young ones at 60k, .5 QA @ 70k, 1 manager @ 120k for 20%, a half a technical writer and a half a business analyst - let's call it one person @ 45k. That's 454,400 there. You haven't even accounted for travel yet, or a part time contractor for domain expertise or a graphical designer or someone to design an aesthetically competent interface. Now, the cost of programmers might be high for senior outside major metros, but the numbers aren't far out of line for a project in less expensive markets. How much are you going to expect two (or three) programmers to do for a full fledged product? Add to this the shifting requirements, client corporate bureaucracy, and associated complications that have been listed below, it's really no surprise that enterprise products have difficulty with quality. I've given it a bit of thought on how to deliver better products in the sphere, but I start designing and realize that we've quickly found our way into architecture astronomy quickly. I'm starting to think the best route is actually something akin to http://baseportal.com/ http://baseportal.com/ with a rules workflow system and a little more front end polish. The problem, again, runs into the customization problems. The more customization that is allowed (and that is a requirement in enterprise), the more complex the system becomes and the advantages of quicker development dissolve.

swombat 18y ago
I beg to disagree. My own business, and many of the YC start-ups, bring products to market for considerably less than $500k. And those products tend to kick ass (well, the YC ones do... I like to think woobius does too). Perhaps corporations would have better luck by offering $100k each to 5 teams of 2-3 hackers, selecting the winner based on their internal user's feedback after 6 months, and then offering that winner a $200k/year regular income for maintaining the app. (Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming...)
- ibsulon 18y ago
  1. You are forgoing current wages for potential future profit. I might be willing to bootstrap a project where the first year's expectation of profit is low, but I wouldn't develop the same project for 15,000 dollars (as an example.) Are you suggesting you'd be willing to work for 30,000 dollars for 6 months? (That's for a team of 3) Oh, and that's including specs and technical documentation and test plans that many customers expect to see before deployment. 2. You are developing for someone else's design, which often changes midstream, and it has irrational requirements due to data flows from previous products. I worked with a product that had to support the public health information network logical data model (PHIN-LDM), an absolute monstrosity of a database. If we were building the system privately, we could have shaved the effort in half, if not more. Importing previous client data can be monstrous, due to poor system checking and user hacks to make a system do what it was never meant to do. 3. Deployment is more expensive. Gathering clients is more expensive. Each means traveling over to the client to gather requirements and install, and to conduct training. Now, if you can do all this, there are a slew of contracts ready to happen. Get a team of three together, and subcontract out to integration teams and prime contractors. All you have to do is find a first and second project to gain momentum.

by ibsulon 18y ago

swombat 18y ago

I beg to disagree. My own business, and many of the YC start-ups, bring products to market for considerably less than $500k. And those products tend to kick ass (well, the YC ones do... I like to think woobius does too). Perhaps corporations would have better luck by offering $100k each to 5 teams of 2-3 hackers, selecting the winner based on their internal user's feedback after 6 months, and then offering that winner a $200k/year regular income for maintaining the app. (Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming...)

ibsulon 18y ago
1. You are forgoing current wages for potential future profit. I might be willing to bootstrap a project where the first year's expectation of profit is low, but I wouldn't develop the same project for 15,000 dollars (as an example.) Are you suggesting you'd be willing to work for 30,000 dollars for 6 months? (That's for a team of 3) Oh, and that's including specs and technical documentation and test plans that many customers expect to see before deployment. 2. You are developing for someone else's design, which often changes midstream, and it has irrational requirements due to data flows from previous products. I worked with a product that had to support the public health information network logical data model (PHIN-LDM), an absolute monstrosity of a database. If we were building the system privately, we could have shaved the effort in half, if not more. Importing previous client data can be monstrous, due to poor system checking and user hacks to make a system do what it was never meant to do. 3. Deployment is more expensive. Gathering clients is more expensive. Each means traveling over to the client to gather requirements and install, and to conduct training. Now, if you can do all this, there are a slew of contracts ready to happen. Get a team of three together, and subcontract out to integration teams and prime contractors. All you have to do is find a first and second project to gain momentum.