Post AXqTymBFeCfXG8Y4qe by wogan@mastodon.africa
 (DIR) More posts by wogan@mastodon.africa
 (DIR) Post #AXqTqNDiZ64ZWuhBrM by wogan@mastodon.africa
       2023-07-19T07:41:29Z
       
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       I got a new perspective on the "build vs buy" argument recently. I've usually been in favor of "buy off the shelf if it meets 80% of your needs" because "building in-house has huge complexity and cost implications"Except, apparently with enterprise/B2B SaaS, where the "off the shelf" licensing cost for some tools exceeds what you'd pay a good developer to build for you custom.Because it turns out, you're actually paying for the devs at the other company to build your "off the shelf" solution
       
 (DIR) Post #AXqTymBFeCfXG8Y4qe by wogan@mastodon.africa
       2023-07-19T07:43:00Z
       
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       So right now, I'm working on helping my client build an in-house tool, and we're having to compete with an "off the shelf" solution, but the more we dig into it:* The licensing cost for the off-the-shelf solution is insanely high* Anything extra that's needed (it's always extra) is charged for* In effect, my client is paying for the vendor's developers to make the system do what they wantIn some aspects, functionally indistinguishable from just hiring and running a dev team directly
       
 (DIR) Post #AXqWvhYQgsphuBcE08 by malmorrow@mastodon.africa
       2023-07-19T08:16:03Z
       
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       @wogan Got the t-shirt.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXqXeA02IETyrtjBey by wogan@mastodon.africa
       2023-07-19T08:24:04Z
       
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       @malmorrow Haha! That's really true to enterprise software, it turns out :)I think the tradeoff runs along the "key customer" axis:* Company with small handful of large accounts - it's mostly bespoke dev per customer* Company with thousands of small users - it's more truly "off the shelf" since you don't need to fight to keep any one customer happy