Party A's requirements for those who have lost 800 yuan

Most of Party A's enterprise procurement behavior should be rational and profit seeking , However, there are always some unimaginable requirements of Party A in our enterprise software industry . For some unwarranted reason , Impose these requirements on suppliers , It seems that you have achieved some of your goals , In fact, he lifted a stone and hit himself in the foot , Lose both with the supplier , It's really hurt “ The enemy ” A thousand , Self damage eight hundred .

Subcontracting and outsourcing are not allowed

Not allowing subcontracting and subcontracting is a practice in project bidding . Its purpose is to prevent uncontrolled delivery acceptance and avoid evading qualification regulations . In the industry of mandatory safety control , This is a normal procurement procedure .

But even construction , Not allowing subcontracting does not mean that outsourcing is not allowed . Almost all concrete precast units are provided by professional manufacturers , Engineering equipment may also be provided by leasing companies , What the engineering company manages and delivers is only the construction itself .

However, the non subcontracting rules of our software industry have been extended infinitely , It is believed that the software project must be written by the undertaking party line by line , The technology and products of third-party enterprises cannot be adopted . The institution that formulated the procurement bidding law has no such intention to prohibit the use of efficiency brought by social division of labor , However, Party A's customers are easy to bind themselves . A project that can be completed by simple integration , But it has become a high investment 、 Low quality custom development projects .

In the process of building an application , Developers should take advantage of all available technology stacks , Including open source and commercial . database 、 middleware 、 development tool 、 Application platform 、 Data integration tools and so on are components that modern enterprise applications must rely on . The project manager or architect can make a comprehensive consideration according to the technical adaptability and cost . however , No matter who you choose , Means outsourcing .

Subcontracting and outsourcing are prohibited , For software project owners , In addition to raising costs , Reduce quality , There are no additional benefits .

Must be developed on site

Outsourcing personnel must be stationed is a common requirement of software project owners . therefore , Many large enterprises have set up outsourcing development offices . I once visited the outsourcing development center in a large joint-stock enterprise , A building is full of thousands of programmers from various software enterprises . The top software companies in China are also based on outsourcing .

Is software development a business process worth outsourcing , This is another topic . But no matter how to design the operation strategy , Outsourcing must bring higher efficiency and quality , Because the supplier may have proprietary facilities 、 Tools and training methods . For example, outsourcing of call centers is a reasonable thing . Software development outsourcing can rarely provide such efficiency and quality dividends . Most software outsourcing personnel are paid a lower monthly price than outsourcers , Doing the same assembly line work , It is difficult to provide additional added value for Party A's owners . It's hard for me to imagine that programmers stationed in customers engaged in outsourcing development can have freedom to explore 、 Practice and learning . Really high-level personnel cannot be engaged in outsourcing development for a long time . By the way , This is also the reason why our zero code application platform products are very popular with customers , Because no matter how many outsourcing programmers , What we do is the same application of data addition, deletion, modification and query .

therefore , Party A's mandatory on-site development will inevitably restrict the software service enterprises from providing more creative intellectual activities . The best they can get is a smooth delivery . Performance optimization in software engineering 、 Interactive experience design 、 Integration architecture design and other issues will not have any motivation to solve . Pay by time and manpower , It also creates low-level price competition in the software development service industry .

What is more , Party A will also require that programmers who develop in the field cannot be connected to the Internet , You can't bring it into your computer , Cannot bring in U disc . This sounds of course for security reasons . however , You let a programmer develop completely offline , Hand tap each line of code , It is simply blaspheming the software industry . No matter how good a programmer is, he should always be able to consult documents , Many of these documents are provided through the Internet . Can't connect to the Internet , For programmers , It's like a craftsman being tied up . The security of computer and network has always been solved by decentralized design and management system , Instead of relying on physical isolation . If all security issues have to resort to physical isolation , Then there will be no computer network in this world .

Specify the technology stack

Sometimes, Party A will also put forward the requirements of designated technology stack , This is usually in line with the owner's own technology stack , When something goes wrong , Party A has the opportunity to take over . The reason for this request is understandable , But in practice, it is also very unreasonable .

First , Today, the richness of technology stack is different from the era of single application more than ten years ago . There are not only a variety of high-level language choices , There are also various combinations of development frameworks , Even in order to complete an application, we need to use a combination of multimodal databases 、 middleware . The age of cloud Nativity , The choice of technology stack is even less important . The microservice architecture ensures that the software services developed by different technology stacks can run harmoniously .

in addition , The technology stack used by professional development service companies is generally more advanced than the existing management and control technology stack of manufacturers . If the technology stack rule is fixed for a long time , It isolates the value that technological progress brings to the enterprise . as time goes on , This rule is to definitely step back . It is a really undesirable conservative policy .

The designated technology stack also restricts the freedom and flexibility of service providers to provide talents . This will inevitably increase service costs , And the cost will eventually be passed on to customers .

Source code must be provided

On the premise that the technical stack requirements are consistent , Party A will often ask Party B to provide source code . For software product companies , This is definitely difficult to do . It is irresponsible for the business model for business software to disclose the source code at will . and , The software product itself is a continuous iteration , Provide a fixed copy of the source code to the customer , There is no practical significance .

Even custom developed software applications , The value that source code can bring to customers is also very limited . If you really want to expand development , Developers also need open interfaces for architecture design , Provide REST API file , Avoid excessive coupling through interface programming , Instead of providing raw code to customers . In any case , Directly modifying the paragraphs of the source code is extremely unreliable .

If it is to apply for software copyright , The domestic application process only requires code snippets , There is no need for a complete source code base .

I've worked for so many years , I have never seen any enterprise continue to carry out secondary development with the source code provided by the supplier . therefore , This requirement is for service providers , Even if there is no harm , It is of no value to Party A .

Software must be bought out

stay SaaS Before the rise , Most software products are licensed at a one-time price . In this business model , Enterprise software products are particularly expensive , and , When customers want to purchase the upgraded version, they must at least pay the upgrade authorization fee .SaaS After fashion , The mode of subscription and payment based on usage time has become popular . Not just in the cloud SaaS You can use the subscription system , Even if it is On Premise Private deployment products can also . Buy out and rent ,SaaS And private deployment are two-dimensional problems .

Enterprise software products that use subscription systems generally have long-term product iterations . The version is updated frequently or even every month , Constantly provide new capabilities according to customer needs and market changes . The continuous subscription revenue brings the power of continuous innovation to software product companies . The subscription system also allows customers to choose financial models with higher capital efficiency , Convert capital expenditures into expenses .

But most domestic enterprises are still not used to this kind of purchase . They insist that the license must be bought out . This buying habit actually encourages the shortsightedness of service providers , Because as long as they sell their products , Most of the income is completed . The next version can be discussed in ten years .

Is it cost-effective to rent , It's still worth buying out , In fact, this economic account is not difficult to calculate . Adopt a reasonable life cycle and discount rate , We can compare the net present value of the two pricing models . If the manufacturer provides rental mode , Customers can use this method to compare , Choose a pricing model with a lower net present value . It's more cost-effective to rent if you count , There is no need for the enterprise to insist on the license buyout anyway .

Full localization

Originally, our national software enterprises were born to develop the innovation ability of the national information industry , But because of this , It is a very narrow understanding to require all software components to be fully localized . Several of our potential customers were abandoned because Mingdao cloud products were not fully compatible with domestic databases , I think it's a pity .

The progress of software industry may depend on the achievements of predecessors more than any other industry , It is also one of the most international industries . Do not embrace the global open source software ecosystem , It is absolutely impossible to make excellent software products . be based on Apache Open source software products because of its clear rules of free use , It is impossible for global developers , Nor should we give up resources . You can say that , There is no open source agreement , There will be no cloud computing , There will be no big data , There will be no artificial intelligence , There won't be so many colorful application products . The premise of localization is the rational use of open source software ecosystem , Many domestic technology enterprises are Apache The main beneficiaries of the agreement related products , It is also a leading contributor .

Wrong geographical understanding of information and entrepreneurship industry , A narrow definition of localization is that many state-owned enterprises 、 Unreasonable requirements of government agency projects , This is equivalent to the best 、 The cheapest software technology is shut out . As for those who worry about the hidden security backdoor of open source software , Or suddenly get stuck , That's because they don't understand the world of open source software . contrary , The freedom and openness of open source software ensures its highest security possibility . We can get security patches for open source software every three or five minutes , This is because of the participation of global developers .

The software industry is highly professional , It also has an internal law of development . It is understandable that large owners want to use their bargaining power to get good trading terms . The requirements of Party A can be rational , It can also be profit seeking , But it should not be rigid , Dogmatic . Because the behavior of the latter may not conform to the internal laws of the software industry . Meeting customers' requirements does not mean bringing benefits to customers , They will only let development service providers and customer enterprises lose .