The question is why and how. There is no point is arguing "low" European salaries unless someone shows European companies are more profitable and they save a nice chunk of money by paying less to S/w engineers.
Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily.
To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.
> Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.
That's a different problem. That's because you, the user, are not a customer of Atlassian. Companies and their micromanagers, however, love JIRA.
Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers.
That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.
> Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers.
That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.
Such a weird logic. You’re saying that Microsoft produces crappy software even though they hire too talent. And they get away with it because the people who buy it don’t use it (i.e. by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely)?
> Apple has less than 10% of the PC market. What do you think the rest of them are running?
If you didn't pay for your copy of Windows (which you most likely didn't, far more likely it was provided to you in another way, such as OEM or your employer), you are not Microsoft's customer.
Likewise, if you got the free license from upgrading, you're also not their customer.
Pirated Windows? Not their customer.
Bought one of those $20 license keys? Still not their customer.
Actually bought a Windows key directly from them? Okay, you're their customer. You're in the minority.
I think it's a very Valley-centric opinion to think Microsoft doesn't have any consumer customers. Even putting aside all their other end user products consumers buy (XBox, the utterly dominant Office).
I certainly don't agree with your definition of a customer. People who buy a PC with a Windows OS on it know it's a Windows OS, and make that choice willingly. It's like pretending nobody is an Android customer because they buy their phones from Samsung not Google.
Perhaps GP means to highlight the distinction between the person deciding whether the money gets spent and the operation who uses the product. That can man a lot, eg if a boss just buys whatever he thinks it's good without asking the team what they want to use.
The point is that the majority of their revenue comes from corporate enterprise. This is one reason Ballmer didn’t understand the iPhone: his customers (corporate IT) wanted the windows phone but no actual users did.
Microsoft was taken by surprise by the “BYO movement”
> unless someone shows European companies are more profitable
They are. Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades.
Europe (thankfully) doesn't want to do that. And "grossly underpaid software developers" enjoy a high quality of life on par with the rest of the population (universal healthcare, extended parental leave, vacations etc.)
> Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades.
That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder. But most don’t have that luxury. Actually it’s a burden: you suffer much more dilution.
Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.