Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs after sales allegedly plummet

Re:Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs after s... by glenstein on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @05:54AM (#45514205)

They could also oppose the change simply out of a belief in what's best for the customers, and an ethos of hardware compatibility. It would represent no change to their burden to continue the company's long-standing policy.

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Re:Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs after s... by toyg on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @06:09AM (#45514307)

> It would represent no change to their burden to continue

But it actually is: because sales must keep growing, so the support burden typically increases linearly - while hiring does not, more often than not.

I've seen this at a few companies now:

* CS teams get built, delivers great support

* sales increase (partially thanks to that support, but there is no way to show it with metrics)

* hiring in CS does not keep pace (because it's largely seen as a cost centre)

* CS teams get overwhelmed and look for ways to downscale per-customer effort.

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Re:Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs after s... by barrkel on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @07:12AM (#45514794)

It's a little bit trickier though, if you're selling hardware with a one off cost and not a subscription. Because your installed base grows even with flat revenue. The lifetime cost of CS (including the calls from people who need to be turned down) needs to be baked into the sales price, but that's a bet.

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Re:Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs after s... by toyg on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @09:39AM (#45516062)

My experience is with enterprise software, where most products were born as shrinkwrap and slowly moved to other models, and I agree, it's not an easy problem to solve. Even if you size lifetime costs correctly (and very few people can), it is quite hard to scale a support org; even if one can see the storm coming, one might not be fast enough to be prepared for it for a number of reasons (geography, capital investment, training times, churn, brain drain, etc etc).

That's why some big names have literally declared support bankruptcy and just don't provide almost any support (google, amazon...).

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