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Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

How is Kronos still in business? How do they not have their stuff back up and running?

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/KRO/

Their stock looks fine. You'd never know their business is inoperable.

I know customers of theirs that just said 'screw it' and wrote their own payroll/timeclock systems. They don't have a 100% replacement yet (not a small project) but at least they can use cards to clock in and track hours.

I'm surprised every employee who uses the system hasn't had their personal information posted to the dark web yet.

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Management pays Kronos because they feel like there's no options, even though their product is terrible and can be easily duplicated. I know this because I attempted to do it years ago. I was tasked with working with a consultant from Kronos to implement their "time management" system. I was surprised/not-surprised when I saw how lame it was. But I couldn't keep quiet after I heard we were paying Kronos something like $250K (early 2000s; can't remember exact $$$ amount, but it was a lot). I told my bosses I could make the same system over a weekend, and support it myself. Management resisted at first (Kronos has certifications!), but then they told Kronos we're thinking about rolling our own, thinking Kronos would drop the price by a few bucks. Nope. Kronos threatened to sue, saying we were attempting to steal IP.

> I told my bosses I could make the same system over a weekend, and support it myself... Kronos threatened to sue, saying we were attempting to steal IP.

If you were going to steal IP, stealing from Kronos would probably be pretty low on your list, because you're trying to build something that works, right?

Wrong stock. That is the share price of an unrelated chemicals company.

UKG is privately held.

Explains it then, did not even see that

I gather there's a strong tie-in with SAP payroll stuff (at least in sunny NZ): several of the organisations I've worked with who moved to SAP payroll/employee management have also taken kronos for timesheeting. And since you can't get fired for choosing SAP, Kronos keeps getting customers

Their timeclock application is terrible.

The org I work for transitioned their Kronos from onsite to their multi-tenant cloud system. And it's been an absolute nightmare. Both software suites are a mess but transitioning to their cloud suite is like downgrading at least 10 years of upgrades.

I truly do not understand the stock price. People who know more about the market than me: What are the reasons not to short this?

Could it be because large investors in Kronos are also large investors in the companies that use Kronos, thereby having a vested interest in keeping the money flowing? Sincere question.

Shorting something means betting the price will go down within a certain timespan. If you do not know that timespan, then you will still lose.

For one, Kronos is not a publicly traded company

HAHAHA. I feel so stupid. Thanks for pointing this out! Apt username.

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