Comment by Archelaos
1 day ago
> And to the haters: Show me any company or product from Germany in IT that is Top 100 globally.
Also I wouldn’t want to disagree with you outright, there are still a few important German companies in the IT sector (or related): Siemens, Infineon, Deutsche Telekom, Bechtle, TeamViewer come to my mind.
What Siemens exemplifies is that the strength of German industry is not pure software, but high-tech machinery. While Siemens and most of its spin-offs are doing somewhat okay, the stocks of its spin-off Siemens Energy have risen by ~700 % in the last 3 years.
Where Siemens really shines, is in their fanatical devotion to after sales.
I rely on Siemens automation products at work. They give me end-of-life warnings a couple of years ahead - and maintain a spares inventory for a decade and change after EoL.
That basically ensures I am never caught out, and makes me more than happy to (grudgingly) accept all their ideosyncracies...
Industrial automation as a market is like that. Those products are expected to be long lived and supported for decades because the machinery they are attached to often has a similarly long lifespan. A company I worked at was still supporting 20 to 30 products and in some cases building new hardware from 30 year old designs (including the exact same electronics).
I assume it makes you a loyal customer when upgrading/replacing equipment too... knowing what to expect and that you're going to have all of that support.
So many product companies fail to think about that -- they're all thinking about this quarter and very few take a long term approach and really try to have customers for life. They all say that want that of course, but too few are really committed to it. There are a few brands that I buy that are committed to quality, and they usually cost more (initially, but probably not in the long run). I'm fine paying more know that they really tried to do their best and didn't let nickels and dimes get in the way of an otherwise great concept.
Of course; I will jump through just about any hoop in order to keep buying their products precisely as I know that will buy both me and the end customer long term peace of mind.
>They give me end-of-life warnings a couple of years ahead - and maintain a spares inventory for a decade and change after EoL.
I have never purchased a Siemens product before, but this statement alone will make me consider them strongly the next time I am in the market for something they make!
In terms of idiosyncrasies, do you have any specific examples in mind? Things like confusing user manuals? Bad UX? Something else?
...Huh. Looking at some of their consumer products line, I am disturbed to see how high the number of devices that can connect (require?) a Wifi connection. Random things like washing machines [1] and stovetops [2]. If I can simply ignore that stuff or turn it off, it isn't a big deal, but if Siemens are one of those brands which will market some standard feature, then hide it behind some always-on, zero security IoT interface, or require a monthly subscription, then it would be reason to avoid them like the plague.
Either way, I am impressed that they went above and beyond and included a manual for how to replace parts for their fridges [3] ("Repair Hints", in the Manual and Documents section). I have a Frigidaire fridge right now, and every four-ish months the ice maker will stop working. The compressor gets covered with frost and ice due to poor design/bad seal. It's not terribly hard to disassemble the thing and knock the frost and ice off for a few minutes. As long as you have Philips head screw driver, a nut driver for two other flanged head screws, and about 20 minutes to spare, you can get it up and running easily.
It irks me though because it is so easy to fix. The manual didn't specify how to disassemble those components. Instead, I had to look it up on YouTube and hope that what some random guy with 3,000 views was telling me the right thing, and that I wasn't about to destroy an expensive fridge or rupture some internal component and release all of the freon. Having some kind of assurance from the actual manufacturer that removing various screws and bolts and stuff is fine is really refreshing to see! :)
[1] https://www.siemens-home.bsh-group.com/uk/en/mkt-product/lau...
[2] https://www.siemens-home.bsh-group.com/uk/en/mkt-product/coo...
[3] https://www.siemens-home.bsh-group.com/uk/en/mkt-product/coo...
Technically SAP is a Société Européenne but still somehow the biggest German software developer.
What matters is where the headquarters and key employees are. SE can be based anywhere in EU and even then legal entity stuff isn't what matters.
Origin: German, HQ: German, Accounting regime: German, Main stock listing: German, Executive board: 5/6 German
In fact, you can run any form of European legal entity from any country. I.e., I can create an spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością (sp. z o.o.) in Poland, but run the business in Germany. It would be complicated and stupid, but legal.
And fittingly SAP is successful despite horrible UX
SAP is basically the core of the German compliance machine. Most of the time, people get onto SAP not because its good, but there's a bunch of compliance regs, which basically say 'use SAP'. Noncompliance results in firms basically not doing business with you.
You could try to be boneheaded and comply with whatever standards they need your own way, but that would mean your business partners would need to do more due diligence and expose themselves to risk of what happens if regulators are not happy with the way you conduct your business. So you use SAP.
>a few important German companies in the IT sector (or related): Siemens, Infineon, Deutsche Telekom, Bechtle, TeamViewer come to my mind.
None of them famous or being praised by customers for having amazing UI/UX though, because they're not consumer products, they're targeting engineers who either don't care about UX, or don't have a choice in the matter because their company is buying it, not them.
Cars on the other hand ARE consumer products and do need great UX, and German companies long forgot how to do that since they operate everything as a cost center and outsource everything they perceive ads no value.
>the strength of German industry is not pure software, but high-tech machinery
Yeah but there's more margins in pure software and more buyers in the world for consumer devices than for high tech machinery. Apple can probably buy all of Germany's machine tool makers if they wanted to. It's the perk of selling to 7 billion consumers in the world.
> the stocks of its spin-off Siemens Energy have risen by ~700 % in the last 3 years.
Just like every energy and defense stock in the world right now, but that's to be expected and somewhat offtopic for SW and UX.
If we look at some of their other consumer and healthcare spin-offs like Gigaset or Healthineers, they are doing insanely poor, which is embarrassing.
>and outsource everything they perceive ads no value.
In their defense, if they know they have no inhouse competence and their existing org structure is not good for building software, then doesn't it make sense to contract people who do and can?
Also, if Germans admittedly are not great at building good UX, and/or software, there are countries/companies who definitely don't suffer from that shortcoming.
And I'm not sure why German cars suck == Europe is doomed, what about the infotainment on Renaults?
> then doesn't it make sense to contract people who do and can?
Except they don't. They contract it out to the cheapest bidder because they optimize for cost over innovation.
They havent totally forgotten. I drove a 2025 BMW last week and noticed many similarities to my favorite car, the '92 325IS. The speedo and tach both aligned in top gear, the thumb hooks were still perfect, and the cluster still dimmed enough for night driving. Someone at BMW remembers how to do UI.