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Software Businesses

Sage Accused of 'Strong Arm' Tactics Over Move To Software Subscriptions 98

British businesses have complained about the tactics used by Sage, the UK's largest listed tech company, to push them into accepting more expensive subscription services or have access to their existing accounting software packages switched off. From a report: Small companies across the UK rely on the FTSE 100 company's Sage50 software for book-keeping, sending invoices, processing orders and helping with tax payments. But in recent months, Sage has pushed customers who had been sold single-payment, long-term licences to the software on to monthly subscriptions that work out to be more expensive over the long run, by saying they would turn off their licences on security grounds, despite having no specific grounds to do so in their terms and conditions.

"It's a pitload of crap," said Kate Barton, owner of model train company Reeves 2000, who last upgraded her so-called perpetual package in January 2019 for a licence she expected to last 15 years. Barton now faces monthly payments of $187 on a subscription model. "This is a bigger picture of the way things are going, where we're forced on to a subscription for everything," she said. "It's quite frightening." Under the direction of chief executive Steve Hare, Sage's focus on subscription software forms part of a plan to achieve more regular recurring revenues, which would make it less vulnerable to the income shocks that can occur from an overreliance on new customers making one-off purchases.
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Sage Accused of 'Strong Arm' Tactics Over Move To Software Subscriptions

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  • by v1 ( 525388 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @07:04PM (#63169290) Homepage Journal

    pushed customers who had been sold single-payment, long-term licences to the software on to monthly subscriptions that work out to be more expensive over the long run, by saying they would turn off their licences on security grounds

    Methinks someone ran this "great new revenue-generating idea" straight through marketing and out the door without stopping at the lawyer's office. It won't last a week.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30, 2022 @07:21PM (#63169326)

      "Turning off the licences" would mean... refunds, no?

      Or lawsuits. So many lawsuits.

      The amazing thing is that accounting is pretty f'n easy if you understand both how accounting is supposed to work and how you can make the computer take on the drudgery for you. Don't really need to know how to program either. So that's at once something you could do yourself and also an opportunity to sell a software "product" at huge markup to those who haven't caught on. Really, ledger-cli is all you need if you can use a text editor. Should you need more, get a front-end to same. The niche is the lack of overlap between "knowing accounting" and "knowing how to make the computer do the work". So at its simplest, write^Wsell a front-end to ledger-cli, undercut these guys and you still have a nice margin.

      • Well concepts like double-entry bookkeeping is easy, depreciation schedules aren't a rocket science. But if you're not dealing with it all the time, it can be a pain in the ass and difficult to know the actual rules and laws and what the hell to do in practice.

        I even took two semesters of accounting in collage but with a career of corporate drone where all that's been taken care of by the corresponding departments. The skills completely atrophied pretty quickly so when I had to submit some documentation for

        • I do my own bookeeping for one business. There are a few things I don't understand how to properly classify*, but they work for my own needs. I send the data to my accountant for taxes and [six to ten months later] they get done.

          *Not sure how you are really supposed to track unrealized investment gains and losses for a company. I treat them as assets, but I think the proper way is a little more complicated. Doesn't really matter though, no tax implication and it is just operational data for the business

        • Also don't forget that this isn't business accounting as it's always been done, this is Brexit business accounting with everything changed and ten times as much paperwork if you do business outside the UK and nothing consistent or stable. You pretty much need to outsource this stuff if you do any non-UK trade.
      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        "Turning off the licences" would mean... refunds, no?

        Or lawsuits. So many lawsuits.

        The amazing thing is that accounting is pretty f'n easy if you understand both how accounting is supposed to work and how you can make the computer take on the drudgery for you. Don't really need to know how to program either. So that's at once something you could do yourself and also an opportunity to sell a software "product" at huge markup to those who haven't caught on. Really, ledger-cli is all you need if you can use a text editor. Should you need more, get a front-end to same. The niche is the lack of overlap between "knowing accounting" and "knowing how to make the computer do the work". So at its simplest, write^Wsell a front-end to ledger-cli, undercut these guys and you still have a nice margin.

        Whilst I'm in no way defending this company, I believe the software did a little more than accounting, it automated invoicing, tax payments, ordering, taking and fulfilling customer orders and a lot of other things. It wasn't just a shell script to say "order goes brrrr".

        Also most SME's are not run by nor employ Comp-Sci graduates who write shell scripts to automate their toilet flushes. They've other things to do whilst running a business.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Whilst I'm in no way defending this company, I believe the software did a little more than accounting, it automated invoicing, tax payments, ordering, taking and fulfilling customer orders and a lot of other things.

          Sure. You start at accounting and you keep adding stuff. There's a lot of canned knowledge in there and it'll be annoying to have to dig it up yourself, work out the details, then can the knowledge for your own use. But if you do it right you only have to do it once. That is the power of automating.

          It wasn't just a shell script to say "order goes brrrr".

          So what if it was a windows GUI to say "order goes brrrr"? Same thing, more window dressing and with source withheld, instant secret sauce. Less power to the user.

          Also most SME's are not run by nor employ Comp-Sci graduates who write shell scripts to automate their toilet flushes.

          College drop-out here, ended up not in developmen

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        "Turning off the licences" would mean... refunds, no?

        Of course not. Just do it like Adobe did with Photoshop CS6: put sh*tty, low-quality DRM code that breaks as soon as Apple fixes various operating system bugs, ensuring that when Apple fixes the bugs, their DRM code stops working. In Adobe's case, the bugs just prevent authorizing a new machine, rather than verifying the existing authorization, so it keeps working until you replace your hardware, but over time, the net effect is the same.

        Almost every company that starts thinking about subscriptions eventu

        • Some software needs to be annually updated, not including security updates. If you have accounting software, it's going to need to be updated every year so it has all the newest numbers and takes new laws going into effect, etc.

          Some software definitely seems like it can be bought once and good to go. A lot in fact. Plenty of software needs regular updates to stay useful though. Updates cost money.

          A subscription model for some software packages sounds like the only way to go about things or perhaps a yearly

        • by tepples ( 727027 )

          That's why I do my part by refusing to subscribe to software. Period. No exceptions (other than free trial periods, because hey, why not?).

          Video game consoles' online matchmaking requires a subscription, and popular MMO games require a subscription (such as PLEX in EVE Online). So does code signing on Apple App Store and Microsoft Store. So do your domain registrar and email and website host. How do you work around each of these?

          • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            That's why I do my part by refusing to subscribe to software. Period. No exceptions (other than free trial periods, because hey, why not?).

            Video game consoles' online matchmaking requires a subscription, and popular MMO games require a subscription (such as PLEX in EVE Online).

            I don't own a console, and don't play MMO games.

            So does code signing on Apple App Store and Microsoft Store.

            No, it doesn't. An app signed today should continue to work forever (ignoring libraries being removed or CPU architecture changes or other similar fundamental breakage), because the signing process uses a timestamping service to prove that the certificate was valid at the time it was signed. The developer must pay to sign a future version, but that's unrelated to whether the existing app will keep working.

            So do your domain registrar and email and website host. How do you work around each of these?

            What do either of those things have to do with paying

            • by tepples ( 727027 )

              An app signed today should continue to work forever

              Though a single signed executable continues to work, the signing feature of Xcode doesn't work forever. The user of Xcode must keep buying certificate renewals to keep the signing feature of Xcode working.

              The developer must pay to sign a future version, but that's unrelated to whether the existing app will keep working.

              An existing app that is a client for servers stops working once those servers end service for the protocol version used by the existing app on grounds that the protocol has been discovered to have a security vulnerability. This is the case, for example, for client applications that use SSL 3, TLS 1.0, or T

              • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                An app signed today should continue to work forever

                Though a single signed executable continues to work, the signing feature of Xcode doesn't work forever. The user of Xcode must keep buying certificate renewals to keep the signing feature of Xcode working.

                That's not actually true. You can use sign things for yourself without paying anything. The only thing that requires paying Apple is using an Apple-provided certificate for distribution. And yes, I very much dislike Apple not allowing third-party app stores, but not (quite) enough to switch platforms. I'd rather just wait for the EU to force their hand.

                The developer must pay to sign a future version, but that's unrelated to whether the existing app will keep working.

                An existing app that is a client for servers stops working once those servers end service for the protocol version used by the existing app on grounds that the protocol has been discovered to have a security vulnerability. This is the case, for example, for client applications that use SSL 3, TLS 1.0, or TLS 1.1.

                An app that is a client for servers should be a web app roughly 99.99% of the time, but sure. The world is imperfect, and there are situations where sof

                • by tepples ( 727027 )

                  An app that is a client for servers should be a web app roughly 99.99% of the time

                  The other 0.01 percent of the time, the app connects a server to a USB device, a Bluetooth device, or something else that random websites ought to have no business accessing. Think something like the client for a Fitbit fitness watch. (Personally, I believe that's more than 0.01 percent.) Not to mention traditionalists on SoylentNews and Slashdot who believe that script in the browser should have never existed, and web applications ought to interact with the user purely through navigation and form submissio

    • Lets see - its a security issue - but if you pay more money and sign a different contract - it goes away. That sounds like a deceptive statement worthy of any jury or regulator, including the stock exchange. The one thing about accountants are they have deep pockets able to run the full course - and play the long game in legal fights - even govts and tax offices know taking on accountants is hard and expensive. They don't settle or give up. Send out a demand letter to the company - hand delivered. What I d
      • by jonbryce ( 703250 ) on Saturday December 31, 2022 @03:57AM (#63169930) Homepage

        The "security issue" is that the licencing stuff uses an older version of ssl, and they are going to disable support for that on the licencing server.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Meaning they are bricking a product with outstanding paid-up licences on a technicality they could easily fix themselves. Which would be their law-demanded duty to do should any sort of "consumer protection" apply.

          IANAL but something something deliberately made unfit for service something something breach of contract? They certainly didn't manage customer expectations very well on this one. What's the wilful intent version of gross negligence?

          • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            Meaning they are bricking a product with outstanding paid-up licences on a technicality they could easily fix themselves. Which would be their law-demanded duty to do should any sort of "consumer protection" apply.

            Adobe did almost the exact same thing with CS6, by not fixing bugs in their licensing code that prevent it from working in updated operating systems unless you pay for a subscription. No government cared. I'd be shocked if anyone cared enough about this company doing it, either. In fact, with Lightroom CS6, Adobe stopped paying for Google Maps access, too, leaving an entire module in the app completely bricked unless you moved to the subscription version or hacked the app to send a different app identifi

        • The correction of a very old protocol should have been done years ago. wolfSSL shows how small and compact the fix could be. The mythical man from Clapham junction would expect better - plus they are asking big bucks and terms for NO functionality change. The fix should be free or some flat fee proportional to effort.
          • I'm very sure a security professional could trace their weedy protocol and develop a third-party patch/ plug-in. Now if Sage did some version check to frustrate a valid exchange, a class action would be a slam dunk. DDOS attacks also come to mind. And if they are this slow to address this, what about all those side channel Intel CPU privilege escalation fixes and CVE lists in front of their noses. If I was on a jury, and my car key stopped working magically because because somebody did something* , I would
  • QBP (Score:5, Informative)

    by armada ( 553343 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @07:07PM (#63169298)
    Quick Books Pro ran a simmilar game on one of my customers. They stopped processing credit cards and forced them to uograded for thousands of dollars to a newer version or they would not process any more. We dropped them and I migrated all my other customers away from them.
  • by bferrell ( 253291 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @07:22PM (#63169330) Homepage Journal

    Intuit has done the same thing with quicken and quick books
    And the accuracy of the programs has suffered in the process

    Work out a decent competitor and take the market

    • The problem is that quick books deal is pretty decent for small businesses. A small monthly payment, you get up to 3 employees payroll, billing and PKI payment systems, "just like the big boys", for 2-1/2% of billing. It's worth $250 a month if you're billing $10k a month. Still a lot cheaper than having a bookkeeper around.

      At half a million a year, the 2-12% is still cheaper than having a bookkeeper.

      That being said, turning off a "perpetual" license probably runs afoul of computer tampering laws.

      • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

        If you think your comment makes sense then you are not in business. You can bill millions for less than a $250 single payment. I prefer to run my business by paying bookkeepers and accountants. They cost nothing since they make it up in increased revenue. Collected revenue that is.

        • If you think your comment makes sense then you are not in business. You can bill millions for less than a $250 single payment. I prefer to run my business by paying bookkeepers and accountants. They cost nothing since they make it up in increased revenue. Collected revenue that is.

          Where are you going to get an accountant to handle all the bookkeeping for the typical business billing a million a year?

          • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            If you think your comment makes sense then you are not in business. You can bill millions for less than a $250 single payment. I prefer to run my business by paying bookkeepers and accountants. They cost nothing since they make it up in increased revenue. Collected revenue that is.

            Where are you going to get an accountant to handle all the bookkeeping for the typical business billing a million a year?

            Accountemps and similar companies?

            • not at $250 a year, you're not
              • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                not at $250 a year, you're not

                The original comment higher in the thread said $250 per month, not per year.

                For $250 per year, you're probably right, but comparing with $250 per month, I suspect it depends on how complicated your books are. If you your bookkeeping is straightforward enough, $250 could potentially buy you up to a day of a junior accountant's time, depending (or less than one hour of an accountant's time on the high side).

                That said, I have no idea how much big-name services like Accountemps tack on. That was more my snark

                • Actually, the OP didn't specify the time period, If you think your comment makes sense then you are not in business. You can bill millions for less than a $250 single payment. I prefer to run my business by paying bookkeepers and accountants. They cost nothing since they make it up in increased revenue. Collected revenue that is.

                  So paying bookkeepers and accountants. That's gotta be more than $250.

                  Returning to the original article. it's about accounting software that does all this:

                  for book-keeping, sending invoices, processing orders and helping with tax payments.

                  No bookkeeper of accoun

                  • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                    Actually, the OP didn't specify the time period,

                    The original poster didn't specify $250, either. The first post to mention $250 said "per month".

                    If you think your comment makes sense then you are not in business. You can bill millions for less than a $250 single payment. I prefer to run my business by paying bookkeepers and accountants. They cost nothing since they make it up in increased revenue. Collected revenue that is.

                    How does a bookkeeper or accountant increase revenue? At best, they might catch people trying to skim money off the top or catch errors in taxes that might cost the business money in penalties, but that's a different problem. The only business that I can think of for which adding bookkeepers or accountants realistically raises revenue would be bookkeeping and accounting firms. For everybody else, it's about

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      What little contact I have had with Intuit showed me that they don't give a single f*ck about security. Consider, what computers in an organization really need rigidly enforced security. If you guessed accounting, you would be correct. So really, nobody in the accounting department should have Administrator access to the accounting PCs. But quickbooks frequently demands with no warning that it be updated RIGHT NOW or it won't run. No AP, AR, payroll, nothing. You can't even check your balance. And guess wha

  • FOSS it up. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gessel ( 310103 ) * on Friday December 30, 2022 @07:41PM (#63169350) Homepage

    Companies suffering should band together and fund a FOSS tool that meets their needs. Or just set feature bounties for projects that are a near fit. Those fees would fund an awful lot of really great development by talented people and create a lasting legacy.

  • Sounds like extortion to me. A call to the Bobbies might be in order.

  • For businesses or individuals. In 50 years you will own nothing other than, maybe, food. Everything you use, everywhere you sleep - leased, rented, subscribed. A Communist utopia!
    • by Pascoea ( 968200 )
      Communism powered by pure unchecked Capitalism.
    • Everything you use, everywhere you sleep - leased, rented, subscribed. A Communist utopia!

      I do not think it means what you think it means.

      What you are describing, with hyper-monetization of access to basic necessities, is a textbook example of a dystopia created by anarcho-capitalists.
      Hint: All that quite literal rent seeking is not really a feature of communism. If anything, communist have historically acted kinda... not very friendly... [wikipedia.org] towards landlords.

    • Re: no ownership (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Grokew ( 8384065 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @09:08PM (#63169500)
      Communist Utopia? More like a capitalist utopia. Making money out of doing the bare minimum. Rent seeking, extortion, brainwashing. Yup, slowly working towards 15 million merits.
    • by ukoda ( 537183 )
      That is only if you chose that option. As long as a market place has competition and at least one competitor selling a product instead of renting it then you can still own.

      The rental model appeals to suppliers as it give a steady income stream that bean counters love. That is why you are seeing everything become SaaS.

      The bigger problem is we are seeing a younger generation who do not see the value in owning things. While that is ok in some cases, such as owning a car when you live in a city center,
      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        That is only if you chose that option. As long as a market place has competition and at least one competitor selling a product instead of renting it then you can still own.

        Yes, as long as the market place has competition and at least one competitor selling a product instead of renting it. But that's becoming harder to find. As we see in TFA, even when you've 'solved' the problem, you still get to deal with shady players pulling the rug out from under you.

        There's an awful lot of software that has gone over to the dark side in the last few years.

      • There is also mental inertia, switching away from something you are familiar can be an effort. Lets take the classic MS Office vs. Libre Office Office:
        For some people switching is not an option (LO still has occasional conversion problems), but many of the current MS Office customers could leave Microsoft behind. Far more than are actually doing it. Even if the financial advantage is obvious.

    • It will be a lot lot sooner than 50 years. Here in UK: More and more establishmemts are refusing cash. Adobe, Shapr3D etc only accept subscriptions. ON.TO offer subscriptions to EVs. Low on money? No car! EU is working towards a universal ID for 2024. Etc.
  • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @08:21PM (#63169422)

    if it is up front and optional. But I think that a company attempting to force someone on a perpetual license contract to a subscription is going to find some uncomfortable letters from lawyers coming in.

    It's one thing to offer a $xx / month model. Quite another to tell customers who bought something previously to suddenly pay it.

    In other news Photoshop CS6 still works fine on my computer a full decade later.

  • Sage produces the accounting program Sage 50 (AKA Peachtree) in the USA. They are no longer selling perpetual licenses starting in 2023.

    The also have a time and billing software called Timeslips. They stopped selling the perpetual licenses a couple of years ago too.
  • As a Sage Customer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebonum ( 830686 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @10:04PM (#63169578)

    Every year Sage sends us a bill for about 10% of the purchase price for maintenance. It's a big bill. We don't use Sage 50.

    Sell licenses to enough customers, and the 10% maintenance adds up. Sage gets a big check, and they don't really have to do anything to earn it. Each year, the change list is stupid short (Tax changes + tweaks). We've been on it for a while, so we turn in 1-2 tickets a year for database corruptions (example: Sage doesn't properly commit or rollback transactions, so power outages lead to havoc.) that Sage has to fix. (Note: Server has UPS, client computers do not) Of course, Sage doesn't figure out where their code is screwed up so that it doesn't happen again in the future. That would cost them money. Plus, the people who wrote the code most likely left Sage/retired a decade or more ago.

    If Sage tried to extract more money from us with a monthly subscription, it would cause problems. Plus any threat to lock me out of my own accounting data might result in a lawsuit and an injunction. If you put your accounting data in the cloud, you better be damn sure to have plan 2. "Our cloud provider closed/failed/unrecoverable error/hacked/etc." is a lame reason to go bankrupt. Accounting data and perpetual licenses kinda go together.

    • 10% is less than IBM's 15-20% mainframe maintenance charges. But they had to keep their software to failsafe banking standards, and it was. Since its birth in the 1960s, backward compatibility has been a promise made by IBM for its flagship System/360, System/370, System/390, z/Series and System z mainframes. Or in other words, what you ran on last year's hardware and systems will run on this year's. That compares favorably against perpetual MS upgrades, perpetual web and Java tweaks, perpetual tracking cha
    • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

      If you are in the UK (and I always presumed that most of Sage's customers are) then you need a new version every year as last year's version will be as useful as a chocolate teapot. In fact this year even the version from the start of the year is as useful as a chocolate teapot.

      Basically, you can't run a business without a payroll and if you have a payroll then things change every year, and this year more than once in the middle of the financial year that requires an update to the software.

      From a small busi

  • And be happy

  • As a CPA in public practice, I see most small organizations using software that is taught in community college or the like. This makes it easy to find relatively inexpensive employees who know how to record most transactions.

    I use GnuCash for my business, but sadly is not taught in school.

    When I get financial information from clients - from whatever systems they use - I load it in to simple software I wrote twenty years ago and apply a series of journal entries to adjust their general ledger. I give them

    • I use GNUCash as well, and really do like it. I find I don't need to do much as external worflow, although I don't do my own taxes. It really is about 90% of what most companies need, although the single-user limitation is a bit of an issue.

    • by Chas ( 5144 )

      My company fought tooth and nail to stay on QB.
      But company policy is "No off-premises" for anything to do with customer management or cash flow.
      So, knowing this shit was coming, we've totally transitioned off Sage and Intuit completely.

      And they'll never see another dime from us.

  • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @10:45PM (#63169648) Homepage Journal

    Like old style Communism, you own nothing. But in the New! Improved! Corporate Communism, instead of everything being owned jointly by the government on the behalf of the people, it's all owned by corporations on the behalf of the major shareholders. Under old Communism, everyone gets an equal vote (in theory at least, though not necessarily in practice), only major shareholders get a vote under Corporate Communism.

    If you hate Communism, you should hate Corporate Communism doubly so. If you love original Communism, you should also hate Corporate Communism's perversion of your ideal. Only major shareholders will like the new Corporate Communism, mostly because they 'somehow' end up exempt.

    • Ah yes, the old "Corporate Communism", where corporations own everything and money rules over all. Also known as, you know, Capitalism.
      • by Chas ( 5144 )

        No. It's a case of "You will own nothing. And you will like it."

        And being owned by an authoritarian government or being ass-raped by a greedy totalitarian software platform, it's all just dystopia.

      • Ah yes, the old "Corporate Communism", where corporations own everything and money rules over all. Also known as, you know, Capitalism.

        True, but formulated in a way even people from the USA who are drilled to react to certain worlds can understand.

      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        In actual Capitalism, you at least own your own things, however meager your net worth may be compared to even small corporations. The rent everything scam takes that further where you don't actually own anything. You have no chance to accumulate even the tiniest shred of wealth. You pass nothing to the next generation.

    • by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Saturday December 31, 2022 @05:29AM (#63169990)

      Like old style Communism, you own nothing. But in the New! Improved! Corporate Communism, instead of everything being owned jointly by the government on the behalf of the people, it's all owned by corporations on the behalf of the major shareholders. Under old Communism, everyone gets an equal vote (in theory at least, though not necessarily in practice), only major shareholders get a vote under Corporate Communism.

      If you hate Communism, you should hate Corporate Communism doubly so. If you love original Communism, you should also hate Corporate Communism's perversion of your ideal. Only major shareholders will like the new Corporate Communism, mostly because they 'somehow' end up exempt.

      What is it about you right wing types and deranged rants about communism that display a complete lack of understanding about how it works? This is nothing like communism where the means of production are not owned by anyone, they publicly owned without social class based exploitation. Under subscription capitalism these key assets are not publicly owned, they are owned by a small aristocracy and the rest of us are expected to rent them at outrageous prices. This is more like the post-Roman process of farmers being converted from free homesteaders (which is more like how regular capitalism is supposed to work) into bonded feudal serfs by an abusive aristocracy. Interestingly the feudal analogy even has room for the competing buy to own alternatives to subscription bondage which in the feudal world were the free cities you could escape to and throw off the yoke of serfdom.

  • From what I understand, they're switching off old versions of TLS support in their client but not providing newer TLS support in their non-subscription server. Would this be something that stunnel could sit in the middle of and upgrade TLS? (also, is it ironic that an article complaining about subscriptions needs a subscription to read it?)
  • Which was almost exactly what Quicken did to their users four years ago.

  • by brxndxn ( 461473 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @11:58PM (#63169722)

    I am so fucking sick of the stupid fucking software industry. Somehow, they have convinced the whole IT (and their management) world that software is more secure when its patches are 'always up to date.' So, you trust the software company to build in 'automatic updates' that give the software full administrative control of your server/computer to supply patches (meaning.. software typically programmed very recently) and somehow this is the solution... I believe it's bullshit that we somehow trust the most recent version of software to be more secure rather than trust other software/hardware to police that software. Some software has been running well for 20 years.. and then there's some theoretical vulnerability (that is probably already mitigated by firewall or other security practice) and it must urgently be patched with some database-corrupting, dependency-destroying, feature-disabling, license-killing, hotfix that has been tested for a total of 2 days.

    The user should have much more control over his/her computer/server. Software really should be getting better. Instead, every fucking thing is a headache and IT/software can blame 'security' as the reason for all headaches.

    • While sometimes that very angry, very basement-nerdy take might be correct, it is also the case that those vulnerabilities are oft exploited almost immediately; reference log4j as a recent example.

      A proper vulnerability management program would take into account the existing controls, such as your network architecture, firewalls, WAFs and so forth when prioritizing patching, but in the absence of that, good practice is to patch sooner rather than later. The very publication of a patch can lead to malicious

  • The price has been getting ridiculous for years now.
    But the move to no-on-premises solution finally broke this camel's back.
    Maybe if there was an actual cost benefit, it might not feel so much like forced sodomy with a bowling pin.
    But it isn't.

    So over the last year we've been divesting ourselves of all SAGE ransomware.

  • When a company is first launching a reasonable product into a large marketplace, it can attract investors by promising future returns on investment based on an increasing pool of customers. Once the company has grown large enough to have sold stock and those stock holders want returns, there becomes a constant pressure in the management team to keep the revenue growing - profitability at a fixed level is not enough. Once the company has sold its product to most of the people in the marketplace who want or n

  • What gets me is having too fix, upgrade or migrate from systems that are functioning only to meet a vendors desires.
  • It's not just the Sage company. Here in Germany, it is now almost impossible to find a decent invoicing or accounting software that does not require a subscription.

    As far as I can see, only a handful of companies share the German market for invoicing and accounting software for small and medium-sized businesses.

    One of my accounting programs even had a VAT adjustment feature removed with an update. Had to continue working with the previous version when a VAT increase came.

    While I can understand the subscript

  • If only some sort of bearded prophet could have foreseen this.

    But oh no, he had a mattress in his office! In the 70s!

  • I had some clients still using Sage/Peachtree 2013. Why? Because it worked and they had no problems with it. For years Sage was trying to get them to upgrade to a newer version or their subscription plan and they kept refusing. Eventually Sage started shutting down their licensing servers. Even if you purchased a perpetual license, if you ever needed to do a new install, there was no server available to validate the license and you'd be stuck on a "trial version" that only let you open "x" times before it n
  • People worked hard to make a personal computer for you; don't rent software.

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. -- Theophrastus

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