Forum Discussion
Hey Mark (and Don, I've added my response to you after Mark's),
First off, thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my post. I respect and appreciate your input as a longstanding Quickbase guru.
The study results you are referencing definitely pique my interest. I'm not entirely familiar with what steps management has taken to review Power Apps in comparison to Quickbase, but from my understanding and what has been communicated to me, I'm going to guess very little has been done, aside from a high level cost analysis.
The SME piece is also a big concern of mine. What I hadn't thought about, which is very true, was the point you made about end-users and departments seeking other solutions or going back to "Excel Hell" because they can't handle the turnaround time for apps. The only other alternative to that I see, is we hire more people to get that turnaround done. But then we are spending more O&M on headcount rather than licensing cost. And it's a lot harder to maintain and justify headcount than license cost.
As for demographic, we are split fairly evenly, which is great. But I cannot say the same if we switch more to developer heavy model.
The only piece I don't necessarily agree with is the commitment aspect of Quickbase. They've made some improvements and commitments, but often times for us, it feels like empty promises. Or they want to jack our license costs up for something that is coming down the road and not yet delivered. But most of the innovation they have been touting is behind a paywall/Enterprise plan (e.g. Data scanner, Snowflake pipeline, new mobile forms). Additionally, we are paying more and getting less support from CSMs than we have in the past.
With all that said, I still think it is the better decision to stay with Quickbase, though it feels like Quickbase has been trying their best the last 2 years to get us to leave just out of principle. Software, great; negotiations/management support, terrible. While the CARE team is always responsive (and mostly helpful for lower tier request support), we have another complex software we use, pay 1/3 of the price and get just as, if not more, responsive support.
Thank you, again!
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Don,
Thank you for the input regarding webhooks and another example of a transition to a Microsoft product. Based on what I've been reading in different forums/threads elswhere on the internet, that is the jist I've gotten. You "can" do it in Power Apps, it just becomes much more complex and more difficult to maintain.
Thank you!
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Curtis Middleton
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With the recent price increases from QB, I know there are a lot of users looking elsewhere. I am hoping that the impending mass exodus from Quickbase will have their team reevaluate the technique. Their messaging is no longer 'look how affordable we are' but instead, 'look how much we are working on, to make it worth your while to spend 5 times more than you were expecting.'
I've had conversations with a number of people BEGGING them to consider affordability for some plans, and hopefully they will listen. I have been very upfront that if they 2x-10x our price (as has been the new norm) upon renewal, we certainly will need to look elsewhere.
Powerapps is one of the place I have looked. I have never used it, but when researching, I just liked Quickbase better. An undoubtedly, they ARE better. Quickbase just needs to figure out that it's ok to charge more for a better product, but there is a limit to how much more. Their recent pricing increases are laughable, so hopefully they will come back to reality so that you don't have to make the decision. However, I would talk to your rep. If enough of us let them know 'look, we love you but we just don't have a choice with your recent price increases', then maybe it will make a difference.
Here is a thread I had when i was looking elsewhere (and now again I am looking elsewhere just in case.....though I have had some conversations that bring mild optimism about pricing). This thread talks about Spreadsheet vs Powerapps vs Quickbase.
https://community.quickbase.com/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=c5c77b3c-4d06-4a3b-84c1-018adce4ce5a&CommunityKey=d860b0f8-6a48-487b-b346-44c47a19a804
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Mike Tamoush
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