I love big enterprise, where ten people can have daily meetings for a month to decide how to pay a few hundred dollars.
Yes, this happened to me. More than once.
No, you can’t just pull your wallet out and offer to pay for it yourself with cash. You’re not an “approved supplier” and it’s the supplier that needs to provide warranty support.
Also if you pay for it yourself, then you’re providing it as a “gift” and that could be construed as corruption — unless you’re reimbursed, but it’s above the threshold…
This whole thread has given me flashbacks to that time when the project manager broke down in tears and put his credit card back in his wallet…
Big companies have people around whose sole job is to make sure that all software that needs to be licensed, is licensed, and that these licenses are the exact ones that meet the providers' rules. This usually means that you are not allowed to use a personally-owned license on a company computer.
Why?
Because the consequences of getting this wrong can be far more expensive than whatever productivity gains you, the individual employee, claim to be achieving.
Docker, for example: we had absolutely no interest in individual users directly accessing their online features (we took a bit of trouble to block them, in fact), so theoretically, the free Personal licenses should have been fine. No.
Ok, so just have each Docker user pay that $5 themselves. How do we make sure every person who has Docker installed on their PC really is paying for a license? Even if we gave them all corporate cards, and Docker was going to be cool with several hundred accounts (or more) from the same domain not being on the "Business" plan, we then get to set up a process with Accounting to make sure the PC scans match the payments.
This might all sound ridiculous to start-up/boutique employees, but is a basic fact of life in corporate IT... which Docker was hoping to get a lot of money out of.
jiggawatts|3 years ago
Yes, this happened to me. More than once.
No, you can’t just pull your wallet out and offer to pay for it yourself with cash. You’re not an “approved supplier” and it’s the supplier that needs to provide warranty support.
Also if you pay for it yourself, then you’re providing it as a “gift” and that could be construed as corruption — unless you’re reimbursed, but it’s above the threshold…
This whole thread has given me flashbacks to that time when the project manager broke down in tears and put his credit card back in his wallet…
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
jussij|3 years ago
MandieD|3 years ago
Why?
Because the consequences of getting this wrong can be far more expensive than whatever productivity gains you, the individual employee, claim to be achieving.
Docker, for example: we had absolutely no interest in individual users directly accessing their online features (we took a bit of trouble to block them, in fact), so theoretically, the free Personal licenses should have been fine. No.
Ok, so just have each Docker user pay that $5 themselves. How do we make sure every person who has Docker installed on their PC really is paying for a license? Even if we gave them all corporate cards, and Docker was going to be cool with several hundred accounts (or more) from the same domain not being on the "Business" plan, we then get to set up a process with Accounting to make sure the PC scans match the payments.
This might all sound ridiculous to start-up/boutique employees, but is a basic fact of life in corporate IT... which Docker was hoping to get a lot of money out of.