Re:What's SAP?
by 1propionyl on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @05:03AM
(#22245463)
> ERP software generally sucks
The question isn't whether it "sucks" or not, but rather to whom it "sucks".
It rightly reads as sucking to us as tech-savvy developers, but that's not the reality for the actual consumers of such products who are not programmers. To them, irregardless of our protests of inefficiency or bloat, there are only 2-3 possible platforms and the competitive advantages of each over the others are judged on entirely different criteria than we would use.
Remember the first rule of design (for better or only in this particle case, almost certainly worse): you do not represent your users.
Except it seems the consensus is that it really does suck - both from the perspective of HackerNews and the people forced to use it
I was one part of the latter group. And am also part of the former, evidently. User from the latter group hate it, rightly so, for bad UI and UX. I do, too. But then I see the intercontected processes you have to run a busniess. And you have to run your business, to a certian degree at least, digital. from that perspective, SAP sucks the less. Which kind of makes it a good software I guess?
> it seems the consensus is that it really does suck
It sucks to the people who has to use it and maintain it. It doesn't suck for the people who sign the checks that pay for the licenses and the hardware to run it.
In short, it’s seen as a safe option, because it’s what “everyone else” uses, and the decision makers have typically come from businesses where SAP has been used.
Nobody actually likes it - but they don’t see any alternatives as viable.
Similarly, I’ve seen folks migrate to and from the various MS Dynamics platforms, and it’s a universal shitshow, with the exact same reasoning, just a different tribe.
ERP software generally sucks, as it has to be all things to all men, ends up customised to meet needs which are obsolete by the time the customisation is complete, and it usually either gets to the point where nobody understands any of how it got to be the monster that it is, and a long and painful replatforming happens, and the cycle begins again - either with a new supplier or a new version of the same old.