[HN Gopher] Why Vendor Software Has Holes
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Why Vendor Software Has Holes
Author : zdw
Score : 21 points
Date : 2022-04-12 19:21 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (michaeldehaan.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (michaeldehaan.substack.com)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > This is why a lot of tools vendors try to push on customers
| feel weird - the vendor wants to make money, but they don't know
| what to build. In many cases, they may even look down on the
| customer, like they are needing what the company produces. They
| attempt to sell but not learn. Because not enough of the company
| is built around customer experience, the tools suffer as everyone
| keeps their head down and builds what they are asked to build.
|
| A very nice articulation of the arrogance of some ISVs. Worth
| pointing out that in some cases, the vendor has structured things
| internally so that they're guaranteed to ignore the customer's
| interests; all it takes is management setting slightly bad
| incentives and you get whole teams optimizing for stuff the user
| actively doesn't want (I'm looking at you, Microsoft).
| johngalt wrote:
| Software vendors have two modes.
|
| 1. A partnership/consultancy where they sell a platform that is
| customized for a small number of large clients.
|
| 2. Solving one area well, then trying to cram as many customers
| through the fixed solution as possible.
|
| The author is more critical of the second type, but both are
| completely rational approaches. Obviously anyone can listen to
| customer feedback, but the economics of software strongly favor a
| volume approach rather than treating every customer as a
| development partner.
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