> 1. Software does not make money. Not ever. Sales makes money. Software only costs money. When your developer peers get confused, distracted, or lost on this matter you better hope your employer is either too big, too stupid, or too wealthy to care.
I do not like this comparison, mostly because it leads to out weight one for another. We currently have the situation that we are understaffed in dev and overstaffed in sales, but sales does not generate enough revenue to justify their existence. However, we can also not deliver as much features as we like, because the dev department is too small.
The failure to properly administer a business does not make the sales/software cost center rule less true. I have seen this failure repeated exactly as you describe a few times in my career, though. I have also seen some major brands anticipate this problem and over correct for it by hiring too many developers without any kind of discipline or unifying vision.
I do not like this comparison, mostly because it leads to out weight one for another. We currently have the situation that we are understaffed in dev and overstaffed in sales, but sales does not generate enough revenue to justify their existence. However, we can also not deliver as much features as we like, because the dev department is too small.