Lead Story – Is It A Bad Time To Buy Enterprise Software?
Brian thinks so. And he’s warning corporate buyers everywhere. It’s a bad time to buy software. Here’s why. The crux of Brian’s argument: AI/ML represents a major shift. Most software vendors aren’t ready for that.
At this point, this is a gamble, not a software choice. Software buyers can take significant technical and financial risks when purchasing new application software today. The question is how to avoid the risk of obsolescence and large duplication costs.
Brian sees big changes happening.
Software companies are trying to figure out where it makes sense to use Large Language Models (LLM), generative AI, and other advanced technologies. Some of these features can replace entire applications or critical parts of existing applications.
Until you understand the aforementioned points, you have no idea how vendors will price these new features.In addition, what you are currently licensed or subscribed to may not count toward your use of Enhanced or Alternate Solutions. Pay twice for the same feature?
Is Brian literally saying “Don’t buy enterprise software”? However, he is wary of big purchases and encourages his customers to ask the tough questions:
Notify existing vendors – Communicate: We care about all the ambiguity around advanced technology, privacy, roadmaps, pricing and security.
I (mostly) agree with Brian, but would like to extend his argument to implementation partners. If it’s time to re-evaluate software vendors, so should system integrators.
Add these:
If you’re one of the few companies with a rich in-house data science and AI development team, things might be different. It may focus on hassle-free access to software data rather than relying on vendors for AI innovation.
When it comes to AI, I believe it is safer to buy software from companies that work well with other companies, including external AI models, and provide well-supported APIs and pre-built integrations.
The following questions are also important:
What is AI’s pricing model? Can I access it with the core release or do I have to upgrade? (For example, for SaaS/Cloud releases).
Some vendors want to “wow”/wow their customers by building all their AI innovations into their existing software. Some companies make it available through additional licenses or a combination thereof. If your vendor of choice plans to incorporate AI into their core release without additional licensing, doing a major upgrade is more practical.
In the long term, vendors won’t be able to get away with charging for AI-enhancing software or additional AI releases (specialized AI apps are another matter). But over a period of one to three years, the licensing issues Brian points out become a significant cost factor. The vendor probably hasn’t clarified this yet and should secure a price guarantee.
The extent to which generative AI will be a revolution is debatable, but there is no doubt that this type of AI is currently expensive to run. Further innovation could drive operating costs down, but for now, compute costs are one of the less-discussed factors in adding generative AI across workflows. Generation AI software licenses may reflect this.
Diginomica pick – This week’s Diginomika top article
- Why Data Management Is Important To Achieving Your ESG Goals – Organizational Tips – Cath for Timely Advice to Focus on ESG: “Despite the pivotal role that data plays in enabling organizations to meet their ESG goals, good ESG data management appears to have a long way to go at all levels.. ”
- Is Rust a strong underlying code that CIOs need? – Not the question I was expecting, but Mark Chillingworth has an interesting answer. “Future technological developments should help organizations become more environmentally sustainable. Red Badger’s Harris says Rust is one of the first languages he worked on that offers both for the same price.”
Diginomica style vendor analysis. Below are our top three choices from the vendors we cover.
Scope of Salesforce Connections 2023 – Virtual coverage provided by Stuart. I was on the ground in Chicago. The show’s generative AI theme clearly took center stage. More coverage will follow at Salesforce’s New York City “AI Day” today. AI is obviously a messaging priority, but we focused on customer feedback and reactions.
Select use cases for diginomica:
John’s Grab Bag – Cath brings the dashboard back to life in “Dashboards are not Dead!” How charities and healthcare organizations use data visualization to make critical decisions. (However, my view is that dashboards are by no means dead. All you need to do is understand their limitations. Dashboards don’t make better decisions by themselves. Alert-based works best in combination with infrastructure). Finally, Chris is working on a fresh crypto report as only he can do for UK crypto reports. Regulations are required, but don’t ask for details.
Best enterprise web
my top 6
- The impact of generative AI on software team productivity is… complex. Reading Joe McKendrick’s latest work, he has one question for me. C’mon Joe, why do we have to be so buzzkilling sometimes? We can’t just enjoy the prospect of being automatically magically productive for just one Scooby-Doo moment, can we? See? Mackendrick writes: ”Given that generative AI tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot can greatly increase productivity, does it actually make the job of tech professionals more complicated?”
- Instant Mediocrity: A Business Guide to ChatGPT in the Enterprise – A Key Piece of Enterprise AI Presented by Hyun Park of Amalgam Insight. His twist on “instant mediocrity” isn’t as negative as some might think. Park writes: “The truth is that being instantaneously mediocre is often a useful level of skill. then you’ve probably got the right answer… If you want to remember all the standard marketing tools your business uses, a mediocre answer is enough, you don’t need inspirational answers As far as mediocrity goes, you get a lot of value out of it.” I I objected to Park’s generative AI analogy as an intern. There was also an intern who could run a ChatGPT circle. A good intern can get an engineer to run her ChatGPT right away, doing a lot better than doing both alone.
- Hybrid Workforce Management: Navigating the Complexity of Today’s Diverse Workforce – Hyun Park offers another content-heavy post for us to ponder: “40% of the workforce is part-time Whether made up of time workers, contractors, or on-demand workers, the workforce is no longer sufficient for management solutions that only consider full-time payroll, onboarding, time, attendance, and benefits. not.”
- Driving an Octopus – Lola Cecerre on a valiant quest to redefine supply chain planning: “My inbox is full of articles about probabilistic planning to improve safety stock. My reaction is Big yawn.”
- Two models of AI surveillance – and how things can get so bad – talking about the AI hearings that Gary Marcus testified before the US Senate – are what we face. Diverse AI scenarios (one good scenario, one not so good scenario).
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Apple Vision – Stratechery’s Ben Thompson is too smart and thoughtful to be tagged as an Apple fanboy for me, but I have trouble distinguishing the smell of fanboyism from his Apple Vision review. bottom. Thompson makes a key point that Apple Vision is much more augmented reality than his Meta’s full VR immersion headset, but as I said on his Twitter: says.
Virtual reality may struggle beyond a sizeable niche audience, but mainstream augmented reality glasses feel inevitable to me. But it’s not perfect yet:
whiff
Microsoft’s “Clippy” designers say they were “extremely perplexed” by their creation. Why are you ashamed? A very annoying and not smart enough virtual assistant was clearly ahead of its time. At least Clippy tried to be cute while (uselessly) interfering with your work. Oh, regarding this:
That is why sentences like this are utterly irrelevant. Why should a greedy and lazy trading attorney be so afraid of GPT-4? Reaching 90 or 95 percent accuracy is good enough for many AI use cases, but not enough to go to court unless you want to be in a tunnel of shame and whip in front of a disapproving judge. is.The cool part – and I think it’s there teeth The great thing is that it provides pretty decent legal know-how to people who don’t have lawyers outside of the internet.
Oh, and this:
Someone might FedEx a copy of that playbook for you before your next event. Let’s stop here because the plane is boarding.
If you find it #ensw Please let us know in the comments if you have hits or misses on any of our works, in a good way or a bad way. Clive (Almost) always. Most of Enterprise’s hits and misses are selected from my handpicked articles @jonerp newsfeed.
