By George Righter, without any help from AI bots!
Big headlines in the news today regarding Cloudflare’s dashboard and API’s being down. This is impacting approximately 20% of cloud companies! Approximately 24 million active websites using Cloudflare including X, Gemini, Perplexity and other platforms are facing widespread outages. As I write this Cloudflare is “currently working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem.”
4 months ago, Microsoft’s Sharepoint server was hacked and hit about 100 organizations according to Reuters. In 2023, Microsoft Azure experienced one of the largest cloud attacks ever and a data breach compromising several CEO accounts. The breach involved phishing attempts and cloud account takeovers, targeting company executives. These incidents show the ongoing challenges Microsoft and other tech companies face when maintaining the security of its cloud services and the importance of proper security measures that protect user accounts and sensitive data.
I have been selling and supporting mission critical label software to Fortune 500 companies for the past 25 years. As the industry evolved, software companies realized that keeping up with windows security patches and supporting their client base was essentially a money pit. Friends of mine had attempted the barcode software opportunities and none of them are in business today. It became too many cat and mouse chase games to keep up with.
Several years ago, software companies started rolling out their SAS, or software as a service with monthly fees that eclipsed the price of desktop options. This made it easier to support than desktop software installed on a multitude of windows versions, hardware configurations, and plenty of unforeseen variables.
Fast forward to today where label software companies have done away with desktop options and have forced everyone to migrate over to their cloud-based subscription services, whether they like it or not. Ahh, the convenience and safety of the cloud! Was this decision made to secure the companies’ survival, or to simply enhance the bottom line for their private equity investors who purchased them? Imagine being a Fortune 500 company, or small business for that matter who used a software package for over a decade, before being told their only option is now cloud-based? In fact, during the past 8 months, I’ve had two of my clients, popular pharmaceutical companies, jump ship due to security concerns for their mission critical label printing. They instead opted to develop their own label printing software internally. And for the small business owner, doubling your label printing cost with SAS is just too bad.
One of the companies I had partnered with for years was purchased by a competing company who had offered less user friendly, “clunkier” software, as they were known for in the industry. Immediately the positive “nice” company vibe was lost, due to sour grapes – quite common after mergers and acquisitions. The desktop options were put out to pasture, so I attempted to stay the course and became “certified” to sell their cloud-based options. It seemed like every 2-3 months new changes were being made: new features, bug fixes, new pricing, discontinued products, shoddy webinars, etc. For my small business, this became a resource hog.
Last year, while attempting to set up for a demonstration, I couldn’t log in. Note that logging in required a Microsoft or Google account; they couldn’t even offer their own server log ins! After nearly a week of trying to get support, I was funneled to a tech in Asia who wanted to take control of my computer to help me out. No thank you! I made the conscience decision at that time to no longer partner with them. Then I came to learn that KKR was the main private investor involved in what I refer to as “purge or offed-ware” marketing. Scouring the web, we located nothing but the benefits of their cloud software, “the wave of the future.”
Offering existing clients, and prospects money-grabbing software, even if they weren’t ready for or had security concerns about the cloud? I looked at two main competing label software companies I had supported at one time or another in the past quarter century and saw they were on the same path with their offerings, overseas support, and private equity investment. Some senior employees fled. One company even implemented an SAS price scheme that charged by the number of printed labels per month!
When my son was with the USCG, during his graduation I remember the Admiral stating “the USCG will only set sail with the proper crew. No exceptions.” Well, this is how I approached offering products and services to clients and prospects. If I couldn’t offer top-notch, reliable products and service that was to their long-term benefit, I wouldn’t offer any at all.
This is why I’ve decided at this time to exclude barcode label software from my product/service offerings. Too much uncertainty, with too much downside. And for the private equity investors out there, it may be time to re-evaluate your portfolios. Sometimes the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
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