zlacker

>>deofoo+(OP)
Good, I will with great pleasure now reiterate my point about people now producing their own code, even complex stuff, rather than downloading potentially malicious and foreign code. Which as a tendency threatens ALL clumsy big ERP service providers selling you SAAS.

Go ahead - I'm ready to be down-voted again and again until folks realize it is inevitable, as is inevitable that many companies in the area of business software are going down down down.

>>larodi+eX8
I think the real question here isn't whether roll your own software will replace large complex 'configurable' systems, but whether companies that roll their own will replace the companies that don't.

ie are the efficiency gains of having something that's exactly tailored to you enough to create a competitive advantage.

It's back to the old idea - of software eating the world.

So for example in the UK - there is a relatively new 'energy' company called Octopus - it's grown and grown and finally overtaken the old established players.

In reality it's not an energy company - it's a software company - that used it's expertise in software to overtake it's energy supplier competitors - it was able to provide innovative products in the market because it controlled it's own software - rather than 'big vendor says no'.

I think it's telling that the founder originally left school at 16 to write computer games, before coming back to do a degree etc.

ie the question is - for any particular industry what's the benefit of custom software. Does a bakery having it's own give it enough of an advantage?

>>DrScie+xE9
Naturally something custom creates advantage as better software mirrors better workflows. I think the more pertinent point is small companies saving money by accessing custom software on the cheap vs paying for a saas forever.

>>alansa+MW9
> I think the more pertinent point

Not sure it is. Unless the Saas company is ripping you off (sure it can happen - but hopefully competition in the market would manage that over time ), then it won't be that much different from your own maintenance costs.

I always think if that's the business case for custom software ( a few quid license cost savings ) then you probably shouldn't be doing it as there is almost always a better ROI case for transformation through custom software.

So back to the bakery case. Is the benefit savings on license costs, or the fact that you can give much better estimates to customers, better de-risk supply chain issues, hire less people to operate, and improve morale via reducing busy work?

All these sort of things have to be more valuable than a few quid on licensing.