Why is ERP software free?

2009Year8There is an article on the computer world, Sina, and other websites.ArticlePainted SkinSAP", Stir-fried, presenting a story that is common but never uncovered to everyone. Search for "pictures" on the InternetSAP", Countless related articles. But this is notSAPUnique issues. We want to talk about the story we have experienced, which is exactly why we have to spend several years developing and launching free enterprise management software.

A few years ago, I worked in a supermarket chain in Beijing. It was not a large company, but I was famous for its fine management and excellent operating quality in the industry, it has been the first record in China's retail industry for many years (that is, sales per square meter. The company attaches great importance to informatization. We are the largestERPSoftware Enterprises -- the exchange between yonyou is from2001At that time, we purchased their financial software.U8, But it was still smooth. After the product is used, we still pay yearly service fees to them because we believe that management software is of extraordinary importance to an enterprise. We hope to have long-term and good cooperation with yongyou to ensure our information technology application level.

2002 I want to resign in the second half of the year (there is no special reason, but the chairman does not agree. In the middle, because of many reasons (such as 03 SARS in the year), I did not quit after more than a year. To 03 year 8 at the end of the month, I couldn't help it. I finally said hello when I was not busy. Then I flew to Xinjiang, Tibet, Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan, and other places, I have been liberated for a month. When I came back, the chairman of the Board met me and asked me to help the company continue to improve some information-based work, so I don't have to go to work every day. When I thought about it, I agreed, because the focus of the past few years was almost entirely on the development of the business management system. Some of the surrounding work still had many shortcomings, So I sorted out some content that needed improvement, including: 1 implementing the office automation system ( OA ) to improve the efficiency of General transactional work. 2 implement the Human Resource Management System ( HR ), because human management is a very important task after all ...... My idea was very simple at that time, because these products were all generic software and I was trying to find a software company with good reputation and strength, which would be more secure in the future.

Considering that we have used UF's financial software beforeU8So I want to continue purchasing the products of this company. First, I talked about its office automation system (OA) -- It is said to be in ChinaOAProducts with the highest market share. At that time, it took less than two days for me to talk about the product contract, and soon it was implemented. After the product was launched, it was basically smooth.

A few months later, we purchased yongyou's human resource management system. NC-ehr -- It is said that the company is the most advanced product for group users. Prior to the purchase, yongyou's technical staff presented various functional demonstrations and introductions to our company's leaders. However, it was not long before the launch of the product found a major problem. First, the system was running very slowly. before the launch, the other party said that the configuration of our server was okay, but there was no way at this time, you can only purchase new servers as required and confirm the configuration before buying them. However, it is still slow to change the server. The most ridiculous thing is that when we look at the actual implementation results, it took nearly 50 seconds to query the information of an employee. At that time, there were only over one thousand employees in the company, in addition, there are only over two thousand outsourced staff. The explanation given by engineers of friends is that the database is too large. We can't think of any SQL Server The data of 1000 or 2000 million people can be called "big" (at that time, the business management system we developed was stored in 50 Tens of thousands of members, and each member's consumption every day, a total of hundreds of millions of records, more non-member consumption information, we also need to perform various analysis operations, not just queries, but also take the data volume seriously ). HRThe effect of using the system in a branch is even more ridiculous. According to the manager, when performing a function to view employee information, you can go to the store to handle customer complaints and return to the store. But at that time, out of trust in yongyou, we continued to set information in the system as they said, and they also promised to further optimize the system. If it is slow to use in a branch, you can only stop using it for the time being and wait for optimization in the future. Even so, after more than half a year of implementation, the organization structure and other basic information have been organized, and employee information has been entered. Other business activities such as attendance, salary, and welfare have not done anything, many of the functions in the contract were discovered to be blank pages when they were used later, and they were not developed yet. At this time, their implementers proposed that they have been implementing the service for more than half a year. The company has urged them to write an acceptance report and settle the balance. Our human resources department looked at these people with no credit and painstaking efforts. after a long time of cooperation, we asked if I could not, and I always thought that HR System is not a big system, and the implementation process is not too concerned (because at that time, the settlement management part of the business system and multi-business management are being implemented), so I said: "If you don't think it's a big problem, just give it to them ". As a result, after obtaining the acceptance report and money, yongyou was unable to get out of the call. After another two months, we felt that this was not the case. After contacting them, they said, to solve those problems, you need to upgrade the product and charge fees. As soon as I heard it, I got angry: "All the functions we use are clearly stated in the contract. We don't want to get your new functions. How can we upgrade them ". After talking about this, the other party insisted on this statement. I had to ask how much the upgrade would cost and the other party offered me a quote. 9 RMB. I think this is an unreasonable price, because HR The entire system purchase price is 6 10 thousand 5If there is a problem with the software, we have to pay for the upgrade, and the price for the upgrade is higher than the price for the entire product. It's like spending money on a dress. 100 Yuan. after buying the clothes, I found that there was a big hole in the clothes. As a result, not only can I not switch back, but also you have to spend money to ask them to make up, and you have to spend more to make up the clothes. 200 RMB. Why is that true!

More novelty remains behind. We feel unacceptable. One of the other's supervisors gave us another option, that is, he implemented other projects near our company, if you ask him to do it, you only need to give him 20 thousand yuan. Of course, this method is completely out of our options.

in 2004 the number of concurrent licenses that the other party sets for us on the annual release is 150 , that is, up to 150 users can be online simultaneously. When the system was launched in the early stage, there were only over 70 online users at the same time. However, as the system was used in more departments, the company's scale was also expanding, to 2005 year, 150 the number of users is not enough. I thought this was not a problem because I considered these issues when I signed the contract. The contract already stated: "Party B (that is, yonyou) is responsible for technical processing for the products purchased by Party, to ensure that the internal use of Party A's enterprise is not limited by the number of concurrent operations ". That is to say, the products we purchased should not limit the number of users (this article was indeed a bit expensive when talking about the contract ). When I set it to 150 in the system, they told me that, the number of users must be set in their system. If they are not enough, you can change the number to me. So I didn't care at the time. When I contact you again at this time, they will not admit it first. I asked them to view the contract and the result showed that they did not agree to execute it. At this time, because the number of OA points are insufficient, employees are often unable to go online, which has affected their daily work. The most troublesome thing is that the general managers sometimes cannot go online and handle various applications when they return to the office. Finally, I thought of a ridiculous way: I registered several virtual user names in the system, and asked the Information Department to log on with these user names and take the place first every morning. Then, when the general managers need to go online, let the Information Department move back to the next one and they will go online soon. This lasted more than two years.

As a result, financial software has begun to develop new tricks. Our finance department needs to add functions of several modules and increase the number of users. When I purchased a product, I already stated in the contract that, in the future, the product will be upgraded, new modules will be added, or the number of users will be increased. The price cannot be higher than the discount at the time of purchase, that is, a discount. But the other party proposed a discount, because this is their company's rule. I said: "The binding force between two companies is the contract. We are not your next-level organization. Your regulations cannot be used to manage us ". But the other party cannot reply, telling me that they are listed companies. Sales increased last year, but the profits did not increase, and the company requested to increase profits. I was so angry that I didn't know how to talk about it. I just said, "That's not a shame to ask for money ". Then I really don't want to talk about it again. I want to talk about it in a few days. But the finance department needs to work, and they can't wait, so they can directly look for the chairman of the board. The Chairman of the Board had to talk to them directly (I really couldn't say it, but she didn't come forward with the annual procurement contract of some top five hundred companies), but yonyou company still pretended to be me. Finally, considering the difference between the discount and the discount was just a few thousand yuan, she was so angry that she said, "Have you ever seen any money in this company?", so she had to agree to the discount. However, the recipient was notified of the result for less than an hour, and the recipient immediately came up with a statement, adding a few thousand yuan of renewal fee. The Chairman was angry and couldn't help but agree. After we notify the other party of the result, the other party will reply and add a training fee of several thousand yuan (in the previous contract, the implementation and training are all quoted together with the product ). Finally, we can only accept it.

The above is only a part of the problem, and other things are too lazy to mention.

In fact, I am talking about this price and condition, not simply because of the price, but once I agree to them, there will be a second time, and the second time will become more severe. Buying management software is completely different from other products. you need to use it for a long time and use it every day. The entire business of an enterprise depends on it and needs to deal with software developers for a long time. Therefore, this precedent cannot be set.

2005Year to year2006In the second half of the year,OAOver the past two years, there have been no results, and UF's attitude is getting worse and worse.2006In the second half of the year, one of their directors gave me a clear answer, with the following requirements:

1.Delete the unlimited number of concurrent terms in the original contract.

2. if you need to increase the number of concurrent jobs, 800 RMB, off each point. Add 100 points: 4 10 million RMB (the original contract price for the entire product is only 3 9 5 RMB)

3.The annual service fee is1.6Ten thousand yuan (this is only200Service fee), "take care" until we are old customers, a discount (OAIn this easy-to-maintain system, we really don't know what services are needed or why we have to pay so many service fees ).

......

(Note: the so-called discounts mentioned above do not actually make any sense. Who do they offer a discount ?)

Below is the email:

 

After receiving this email, I decided not to talk about it anymore. This is not a question of how much money is spent. This requirement is extortion. In addition to "Admire" their "amazing", I think this really should be a sentence: "People are shameless, the world is invincible ".

These problems have been hanging. Although some other jobs are busy, these tasks are bothering me every day because many colleagues cannot log on to the system and many jobs cannot be done. After thinking about spending so much time and money, I wanted to find a reputable software vendor, but I had such a thing. I felt like I was a ghost (like last year, A competitor of UFIDA made a promotional film, in which UFIDANCThe user description of the product is possessed by the little devil. At least it is really an image for us and can be awarded the Casio excellent documentary award ).

2007Year3One night later in the middle of the month, when I went to bed, I was suddenly woken up by the sound of a dog. I didn't know where the two dogs were fighting, and one of them was fierce, I can't go to bed. Think of bed to drive the dog away, but those days Beijing just stopped heating, night is still very cold, it is estimated that a trip back even more sleep, in the middle of the night, it seems a little too bad to get angry with the dog. But I was so angry that I couldn't sleep, so I thought of these things from friends once again ...... During that time, the self-developed collaborative commerce system was basically completed. I suddenly remembered that,OAThe system is much simpler than the business management system, collaborative business system, and other software we have developed, but we have been focusing only on business development (after all, this is the core work ), I never thought about these tools (I always think that this standardized software can be purchased ). But we have excellentJavaEngineers and database experts, and various powerful business management systems are developed by ourselves.OAIt's nothing. I have already finished talking to them. I was so excited that the name of a dog outside seemed to have become the most beautiful symphony. As I lay down, I thought that if I just finished the development, it would be too cheap. We purchased yongyou products four times before and after.OA,HRAs the first user of the product in the retail industry, the financial software service fee is paid every year. All payment has never been overdue for one day and should be regarded as a high-quality customer. The contract is also rigorous, but we still encounter this situation, so I think we are not the only one who has this experience. At this moment, I suddenly came up with an idea: not only do I need to use this software, but also release it for free!

Early the next morning, I found our engineer. JavaMaster, I spoke about it. OA The cause and effect of the system (he was not new at that time and did not know about previous problems ). He is a quiet guy, but he is a fast gunner. I just spoke about it in half, but before I could talk about it, he jumped into the data center and broke UFIDA in fifteen minutes. OA The dongle asked me: "add more users 0 , Change 1500 Enough? Or add more 0 ?". I hurriedly said, add 0 That's enough. As a result, the problem that has plagued me (and all my colleagues) for a long time has been solved strangely. However, after a while, I thought about it. This is still not the case. Why do we need to maintain our legitimate rights and interests in this way? I still want to redevelop and release it for free. However, this idea is a bit crazy, because this product is the core product of yongyou after all. I will do it in this way, so I am afraid to scare him. So I tried to explain my thoughts. Finally, I asked, "If we re-compile a system like this, is there a problem ?", He gave a sigh of relief. "What about this ?......", Then I stopped for five seconds. I felt that these five seconds were a long time. I thought he was scared. I didn't expect him to say "easy ". I was so excited that after I finished my other work within two weeks, we started immediately. OADevelopment. During development, refer OA The original name of the system is "Yong youzhiyuan ". A6 In the collaborative Office System, the internal product is named "yonyou is not far away ". V9 Collaborative office system "( V9 Yes A6 ). The development work was successfully completed with our efforts (of course, it took a lot of time to optimize and test the details later ), 2008 Year, we switched the original one. OA The switchover was smooth and solved many problems (such as frequent disconnection, slow functions, and security issues), and added some new functions.

OA after the development starts, let's start thinking, since OA can do this, HR Why Not? At that time, HR the system was basically suspended. Therefore, after OA starts development, we started to synchronize HR system solution and architecture design. However, HR the system is much more complex than I thought -- and we have to do much better than the one we bought. However, although the development is much more difficult, this is the way to solve the problem after all! At least there is no need to negotiate meaningless with you (that is, it cannot even be called negotiation because the answer is ransom ). HR the entire system development process lasted for one and a half years. However, our system functions far exceed our original imagination. They are very suitable for personnel management of large and multi-branch enterprises and can complement other management systems, so we developed the training system, contract and payment management system simultaneously. In 2008 year 9 month, HR the system has been developed and 11 the month was officially put into use, and then it took only four months to implement all the functions.

over the past few years, I have been thinking, this problem may not occur only in UFIDA (just as in the recent sap as mentioned in this Article), I am angry because we have been in contact with many companies, including the top five hundred companies such as Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble, there are also small companies selling radish and cabbage. Employees of these companies have been well educated and have never learned anything, but they all understand the truth of "speaking with confidence, sometimes I even think that the word "letter" is really good. "Man's words" are "letter", that is, when people say it, they need to talk about it, why is the largest ERP enterprises (and their employees may have learned a lot and should at least look at them as a bit of Education) can not only treat non-Ambiguous contracts as nothing, What's more, we have to pay even if we want to discard our contractual rights and interests?

after a while, ERP software vendors need to constantly find new customers to sell the software, but as long as they receive the user's money (even if they only receive part of the money), the user will no longer have any right to speak. When these software vendors cannot find enough new customers (after all, it is not easy to launch new customers) and there is performance pressure, it is not surprising to blackmailed old customers. When a user uses the previous management software, many things depend on software developers, such as product upgrades, troubleshooting, re-installation after server replacement, data migration when storage space is insufficient ...... At this time, each user's demand becomes an opportunity for them to kill people, and even the problems of their products, also require users to pay for them. At this time, the user has spent a lot of money, if you do not pay for it, it means that the previous investment has been done, so in many cases, you can only continue to pay for it. When these software vendors find it easy to pay for it, they will continue to slaughter it with a single knife. So it doesn't mean that these software vendors have bad human nature, but there are problems with the mechanism and environment. The reason why we didn't file a lawsuit or post on the Internet is because I think there are more than one cover, which is not a special case. In addition, prosecution or exposure cannot solve the fundamental problem. The software is different from other products. You have to use it for a long time. Now you have sued, exposed, and solved the current problem, in the future, troubleshooting and product upgrades will be required ......

All, at the beginning, I wanted to provide free software, new version upgrades, and basic services for free. It may be an angry idea, or I naturally liked to confront some asshole, however, in the years that I developed these software, I began to think that only such free software is the right direction for the software industry. In this way, when a software is not doing well, users can discard it without hesitation. At least they don't have to worry about spending a lot of money as before, in this way, software companies can be forced to make their products better. This idea may be a bit strange, as if there is a statement in a promotional material about why blood donation is needed, it seems strange, but it makes sense that: "because it is a voluntary blood donation, therefore, we can better ensure the quality of blood ". We can now see a lot of excellent free software and services, such as Linux is the best operating system on the server, QQ is the best instant messaging software, as well as a variety of mailboxes, excellent Office software ....... Although management software is very different from these software, when we promise to be free forever, we do not have to spend any time thinking about how to slaughter customers, you can use more energy to make products better and services better, this is what we call our website "Service Club" ( www.fuwushe.org ) one of the reasons ( 2006 when I was thinking about the asymmetry of commercial transactions, I remembered the "Military Service Club" that I often went to when I was a child, so I registered this domain name. Last year, I learned that this yonyou stock company 20 it was a fate to call yonyou financial software service company when it was founded many years ago! I hope we can take advantage of the word "service" they threw away ).

I do not reject charges. I have been working in the retail industry for many years and still love this industry because I believe in the greatness of business. I think everyone agrees that customized and special software can be charged. services that require a large amount of labor costs, such as implementation and on-site services, will be charged; if you want to put the system into use more quickly, or the company does not have a dedicated system administrator, or you are more comfortable with outsourcing services, you can also purchase these services.

However, these billing methods are not mainstream. We believe that in the near future, the vast majority of standard business management software, such as financial software and office automation (OASoftware, inventory management software, and human resource management software are free of charge. Because each of the following steps is easy to implement:

1.Product installation: you can download it from the Internet for free and install it on your own;

2.Training used by the system: You can make standard video courseware and learn it online at any time. This is more effective than sending a video courseware to software vendors, because it can be listened to repeatedly. When there are more enterprises, social training institutions will also carry out some training work. After all, this is conducive to the employment of trainees.

3.System Upgrade: Standard upgrade can be provided onlineProgramUsers can follow the instructions (of course, you can also purchase the service ).

4.System Maintenance: provides easy-to-use maintenance tools for users to easily handle.

Prior to this, software installation, upgrade, maintenance, and many other work must be done by software developers or their agents. This is because it is charged for installation, upgrade, and maintenance, therefore, users cannot easily do this. If this is not the case, you need to set some obstacles in the software, such as limiting the number of users and setting dongles. However, now that we can develop such a complete system, if you really want to provide some other tools so that you can freely install, upgrade, maintain, and use them without paying for them, what is the difficulty?

therefore, at the beginning, we considered not only to make all our software free, but also to make relevant links as free as possible. For example, our product is cross-platform. It can not only use Windows servers and commercial databases, it can also be installed in Linux operating system and mysql database, so that users can use this system in a completely free environment. We will continue to upgrade our products and provide free upgrade and maintenance tools. At the same time, the basic service is provided free of charge, so that users can get at least one clear answer if they have any questions. We believe that as long as we work hard, this free age will come one step by one.

Some may think that the future software model isSAAS(Software as a service), This method often compares the use of software to open the tap water, pay-as-you-go. In this way, users can directly use the servers and software provided by the software vendors, as long as they can access it through a browser. When the software performance and network performance are good enough and the software vendor or service provider can fully guarantee the security of user data, this is a very good way (of course not yet fully implemented ). But I think, in this way, the final result will be free. I don't know how to describe what I think, but I believe that management software is more important to enterprises than water is to people, and more important to people than air (such, in the bank, the software is broken and the business cannot be done immediately; in the supermarket,PosIf the software is broken, you cannot collect money immediately ). So I want to borrowSAASThis name is calledSAAMethod, that isSoftware as air. Just as everyone has the power to breathe the air freely and free of charge, every enterprise-if you need to use management software-can use it freely and freely.

Even if you really want to spend money on a software similar to our products, you can have another negotiating condition. You can tell the software vendors that they do not provide good conditions, so go back and find a comfortable bed and think about it. Or, you can also tell us which features you must buy. Maybe this feature is available in our latest version, or we will do it soon-of course, it is still free.

 

Http://www.fuwushe.org/jsp/news/article.jsp? Page = News & id = Why-ERP-free